


Maestro de l'obscurite

by Leshan



Category: Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Auvergne, M/M, Mortality, Paris - Freeform, Slash, Theatre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-06 14:45:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 64,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1861764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leshan/pseuds/Leshan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This work was written in 2003 and originally posted to the website Minuo.Org and subsequently to Lestatdelioncourt.Com - This story richly and explicitly details the mortal relationship between Lestat and Nicolas from the time of their meeting in Auvergne until the night in Paris when Lestat is forever changed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Honoring

I still can recall the first time I laid eyes on him; He was a vision in gold brocade, with dark and tousled hair, and eyes that should they but choose, could invite and burn all in the same instant. How strangely irritated I was, embarrassed by the awkwardness of stepping forth to meet the merchants of the village, and to accept gifts from them for doing the seemingly impossible on my own. My vanity had evidently not kicked in yet at that point, and so though I knew the act of vanquishing the wolves was spectacular, I felt it quite more for myself alone than for anyone else. Of course that then marks my selfishness, which often has precluded my vanity. 

So there he was, handing me the obscenely decadent coat that was to become in large part, my cloak of destiny. The supple folds of rich, deep velvet and it's lining borne of the very beasts I had slain, being offered to me as a trophy, and as a symbol of tangible gratitude. I often wonder if there was some magic wound into the very fabric of the garment that rendered me helpless as to what would come. Did immortal eyes, closed and dreaming far, far away see me as I stood there among the crowd, draping myself in such resplendence? Was it then, in his dream that he first uttered the word that would be whispered into my ear with intimate, profane reverence not too long from then? I'll never know, but the question now is overshadowed once again by the memory of Nicolas de Lenfent as he stood there that day and leaned toward me, reminding me of the youth I was, and the mischief that was inherent to the age. He produced upon my face a slow and genuine smile that for a moment felt strange to the usual seriousness sadness I wore. There was within me, a slow and rising wave of intrigue that wanted more of his expression, more of the rich and roguish spirit I sensed around him. I do believe from that day forward, I was set upon a different path, and that like his beloved violin, Nicolas may have been but an instrument, finely played into my life. 

A full week passed after his lustrous presentation before I decided to seek his company. Whether I was afraid of his intimacies or the strange desire that was sparked inside of myself, I wasn't sure. Perhaps it was that I had to decide just why I wanted to pay him a visit. A teenage boy might well sit and subconsciously rehearse what he will say and how he will act when he pays a visit to the first girl that has knocked him for a loop; Allegorically, perhaps, so to then was the situation for me when thinking of him. It was grossly correct to say that I was in desperate need of some social interaction with a young man my own age, for that alone as well as to escape the confines of my supposed aristocracy that for all intents and purposes didn't exist - at least not in my mind at that age. Yet I had grown accustomed to being alone, and lonely too. I had a certain comfort in discomfort, even if truthfully, I hated to be alone. I had, if you will, an appreciation for the solicitudes of silence. After all, hadn't I wanted to devote my life to God in the confines of the monastery? That desire had been ripped out of my hands, but still, no matter where I was, there was always inside of me a demanding loneliness that preferred to be alone, riding in the green hills of Auvergne, or sitting quiet in the gray stone rooms of our castle home. I well could have spent my entire life in the monastery I think. Not only did the silence suit me, everything about it seemed to welcome my senses! The smell of the books and the constant incense or wood fires that would burn low and as sparsely as anything else there, the robes of the monks, drab in their sufficiency as they sat, schooling me like a rare gem left to polish. I was well entranced there, but as I say, it was not to be my vocation, thanks to my Father. He brought me home, kicking and screaming, and I took all the anger and resentment inside of me and went one day into the woods, and dared the damned wolves to eat me with all that bitterness inside. I think they'd have died from vomiting had they attempted to digest me as I was, but they didn't have that chance. I fought them, each and every one, down to the last until the snow was bloody stenciled with their lives. 

With quiet apprehension playing on my lips, I donned the cloak, smoothed my garments slowly with a caress, and went out in search of Monsieur de Lenfent. Within a short time, I had another offering - a full bottle from the innkeeper without his even knowing that I had only money enough for a glass. I thanked him with a soft smile and a nod that didn't betray the strangeness it made me feel to be so beholden by the townspeople. While I sat there, drinking the rich, bittersweet burgundy, down the stairs and into the room bound the object of this, my more subtle hunting, dressed in luxury yet again to render me speechless for a moment. He sat near me, and almost simultaneously we began to question one another as if each were some new and exciting land the other had just discovered. I wanted to know all about Paris, and whether it was everything I'd ever dreamt. He of course, wanted to know about the wolves. 

For a brief, frictional minute, the questioning ceased as we studied one another. This was broken only when he announced that the usual tide of commoners would soon be muddling into the inn for their meager repasts and once they had, we would no longer be able to converse as we wished. The thought of it seemed foreign to me; that anyone else should come to the place while the sons of great men sat in eager discussion. I think I laughed at the image, dismissing it as impossible for a moment. He then heartily expressed his wish to honor me with supper in the small bit of privacy above our heads where we could indeed continue. Before I could think to decline with any degree of modesty, I was following him, my hand in his, upward to the unpretentious space that was his room, where a gentle fire burned in the hearth, and where my life would begin to be changed, forever.


	2. Our Conversation

How long we sat in the warm confines of the room I couldn't say, but as too often is the case, it seemed like time flew by before we'd had enough of one another. The things he spoke of left me enthralled. He seemed like a man of the world to my innocence, which had only ventured out enough to pursue the monastery and the little theatre troupe. Yes, of course there was the whole incident with the wolves, which brought Nicolas back into my life and allowed for our sitting together as we were, but even that seemed somehow pale to me in comparison with the things he'd seen. He'd been to Paris - and on his own yet! As he spoke, rather nonchalantly for my liking, I nodded along as if I was hearing every word, and honestly I was trying to stay focused, but my mind kept wandering. I envisioned myself in velvet and lace, there in Paris as he must have been, sitting with him perhaps in the Latin Quarter, discussing Voltaire and being oh so righteous with myself. I laughed and nodded again as I thought such things, and implored him to continue fueling such fantasy! It hardly seemed possible that this was the same Nicolas de Lenfent I'd known as a young boy, and for several moments, I was achingly green with envy and hoping he didn't see it in my eyes as I followed his movements. He'd grown into a man while he was away. I couldn't help but to notice the broad lines of his shoulders, and the firm contours of his face. Of course it was his hands that held a fascination for me as he drew little maps onto the table for me in explanation of this place or another I would ask about. His hands were muscular, not like those of a field worker or the craftsmen within the village. They were more… graceful. I longed to see him play, to behold him as he picked up his violin and carried me away with a melody. I wanted even more than I already had, to forget there was entirely another world waiting for me back home with my brothers. I dared not to ask him. I wasn't afraid mind you, but if I said I wasn't at least somewhat intimidated by him, I'd be lying. In fact, as I've said, I was enthralled. He was, in this sharing, transporting me out of that other world where I didn't matter so much, where my dreams were snatched and broken, and enfolding me in the soft warmth of his words. 

He tried to play it off as if he wasn't himself captivated by the very things he was telling me, but I knew differently. He was effervescent in both word and gesture, and that passion… How I wanted more of it! Had I thought about it more at the time, perhaps I'd have realized that he mirrored the exuberance I often had to restrain within myself, but all I knew was that I could have stayed indeterminately there in that room above the inn and listened to him over the ebb and flow of the crowd beneath us as we drank fairly our free and fairly palatable wine. When a lull came in his words, it seemed perfect and undisputable. I sat back against the wall and closed my eyes, allowing all the questions he'd been kind enough to answer for me slip into the folds of my memory. These would be the things to think of when they tyranny of home became too much. 

As if he sensed my thoughts, he spoke, softer than before yet with a certain timbre of certainty to his voice. That struck me as well; He seemed absolutely convinced about everything when I listened to him. He had that masterly tone and modulation to his voice. Of course, I thought, he was a musician after all. They learn timing and such, but to make an instrument of his voice? Again the envy crept in quietly as I turned to look at him. What he'd said had overtly caught my attention, just as he'd meant for it to do. 

"… a secular age, you say?" I rephrased his statement, mulling it over in my mind. Briefly, I flashed on his Paris swept away in the habits of religious fervor, and I just couldn't see it. When he explained that it had become more a fashion to be sanctimonious, if not exactly sanctified, I could do nothing but laugh. I held that though as I looked deeper into what his eyes conveyed. I saw somehow a longing there, a desire for secularity to be appreciated. When I relayed to him my lack of solemn belief, he pondered aloud whether that was right and good for the people, including myself to not have such beliefs. I had consumed one too many glasses of the wine to launch into a fully non-offensive dialogue with him, so I merely spoke my truth at that time and told him that I'd always lived and apparently survived without beliefs to warm and comfort me. That was when he chose to remind me of the dreadful place where I'd stood crying as a child, hysterical for the tale we'd been told on the witches that had been burned there where the ground was still an eerie, charred shade of black. To that day, when I went into the village I deliberately steered clear of the place he spoke of, and I didn't much feel like discussing such a thing in my condition. Sitting there with him, I was at once embarrassed and defensive when he brought it up. I dismissed it as my having been intolerable as a child overall, and with my half-drunken grumble and frown hoped to dissuade him onward to another, more uplifting line of thought. This he did, and soon enough we were laughing again as I told him flat out that I'd get on the road to Paris if the opportunity presented itself. He leaned toward me and touched the fur collar on the cloak, admiring it for a moment before his lips graced my cheek. What was it he called me in that moment? A foreshadowing… if only I had known. "My lord, the wolfkiller." - I barely heard it before our combined weight nearly toppled the table, and the laughter once more ensued. 

He stood up and swaggered to the door where he leaned down a couple of the steps and requisitioned a third and really unnecessary bottle of wine for us. Of course it was Old France, and wine was like water for the most part, poured into much smaller bottles that one can buy in the modern world. It wasn't considered a luxury of high social gatherings, and was consumed everywhere both by the young and old. Nicolas and I were merely capitalizing on our heritage that afternoon, and as he poured from the third bottle, I too began to pour out my own sweet litany of memories and details of my life as I'd never shared them with another soul. I shared with him deep, restless fears that sprang up in my grandly stark room when I was alone in the long night. He nodded and paused as I had done while he talked, and it nearly broke my heart, the duet of our words - the give and take, the sweet pull and posture which the intimacy of the room begged to hold. There came up the stairs another bottle, though by then we fairly ignored it, and accepted it only as a token or testimony to the life that we took for granted. Another fire was lit, and oh deliriously aware was I of the ecstasy, in the warm, exquisite drunkenness we shared! Quietly at first, and then more impassioned, I spoke up and asked him to play for me. 

For a moment I thought my request to be improper for the way he looked at me. I thought, his father has smashed his violin you idiot, how can he play? I felt the faux pas come as flush to my cheeks that with the heat and the wine went unnoticed. I vaguely recalled then what my mother had said about him selling a watch and other assorted belongings in order to purchase another, and I smiled at the somehow characteristic defiance that once again mirrored my own. The instrument was somewhere waiting for such a request, I was sure and I was delighted when in confirmation he sprang, or more correctly wobbled up from his chair and with a quick turn of his head and a hearty laugh, ran off the short distance to his home to retrieve his treasure. 

You have to perceive the time, and the room. The small, almost intimate invitation it posed with it's dried out, honey-toned walls, the low hearth that held a fire tight and made it burn hot for hours, the slant of the late afternoon sun as it came through the window and livened the dust motes, calling them to dance in it's wake. I was comfortable there in a way I had never been before, and it wasn't only the physical difference between the warmth of the inn and the stone cold, almost desperate feel of my home. In the small room with Nicolas, I felt young. I felt like I had a brother at last and that maybe all my life I had really meant to be with him in that room! Maybe my brothers weren't really my brothers, and I'd been kidnapped from the Draper some nineteen years before by a jealous Marquise! I laughed at such thoughts as he came back to the place and busied himself with collecting the beauty of a well-kept violin from a dark leather case. He turned, lifting it up to his shoulder, and for a moment, neither of us said a word, but still there seemed to be some invisible bond that was growing between us. I knew that he felt it as well, and all I dared do in acknowledgement was nod gently, and lean myself up against the wall, ready to receive the gift of his music. 

There is nothing to describe the first iridescent shimmer the bow caused as it pulled back and produced a sound, somehow unlike any other note I'd heard in my life. From that first strike, he was alive and embedded into my heart and soul like no other before or since.


	3. Rubicon

After the first time he played for me, it seemed I could hardly get enough of his talent for the instrument. In his hands, the violin was so much more than polished wood and strings! It was something alive that he coaxed and caressed into producing a wondrous, drawn out melody that wasn't merely a melody at all but the very soul of that instrument pressed between his shoulder and ear, bleeding for him so willingly, and I - a humble observer reduced to tears or left with my mouth agape until he broke the silence afterward with a gentle laugh, insisting that he wasn't so good as all that. 

Nicolas played that instrument for me on so many occasions that it became a panacea for whatever ailed me. If I was sad, there was the music. If I was lost to dark thought - which came soon enough, there was his violin once more at the ready. Many dark moments there were then among the golden that we shared. Even now I cannot hardly bear to think of the despair that filled my mind on the eve of my startling revelation from those nights, that when we die, when we pass on to whatever is waiting for us there might be nothing at all there to wait or welcome a soul spent so long in the struggling plane of worldly existence. The clarity of that moment can come rushing back to me some two-hundred years later without skipping a beat, and it shocks the very blood in my veins for just a second, cold and scared as I was then. Of course by now I have gone on in ways that mortal version of myself could never imagine, and I've seen Heaven and Hell and proof positive that even the witches of my youthful lament did indeed have a place for their souls to find safe harbor in the afterlife. I picture myself as I was that night with Nicolas, and yes I feel it rush through me as if it were that very instant! I was bereft and broken with the utter abyss that spread wider and wider beneath my feet there in the inn as I paced and then stopped, begging for some other sense to take over and tell me that what I was thinking and realizing at that moment was anything but the truth and inevitability that would consume everything and everyone in the end. Even now, after all I've seen, where I've been, and the peace I've come to know - if I give in to that line of thought, it terrifies me. The night he took me into the orchard and poured forth such sweet panacea to soothe and cradle my insecure heart cannot be recaptured or replaced by anything. It is a sacred memory among many that I have archived and set away, to be only seen by my mind or shared with very few now. I've moved on in so many ways from who I was then, and the pain of the time is nothing I can bear to be in for very long. 

So I shall now in my remembrance skip over those dark hours and nights when the world at once meant everything and nothing to me, the time when the truth as I perceived it nearly swallowed me whole, and Nicolas and the promise of Paris together was the only thing that saved my life. Instead I'm electing to jump ahead to when he and I finally claimed our youthful dream and arrived in the City of Lights. Of course, there was a different luster that hung over the city in that time. It was romantic and every bit a fantasy destination as it is to the modern world.. Here then, is where I find myself hesitating. Well can anyone who has read our account and chronicles in and out between the lines might surmise the intimacy of those nights he and I had together. I have kept within my deepest heart, the truth of just how much I loved him, for even what might be felt by any reader, it can never be known what the lover feels for the beloved, except for in the lover's remembrances. There are countless speculative works about Nicolas and I among others; gratuitous and even well written pieces I'm sure, far and wide. How might I prevent my words from falling into that category? Ah but I know, those who feel me, they would not quantify my recollections as such, of that much I am certain. So shall I tell then, how my good friend and I came to be lovers, beginning with a quiet, misty night in the back streets of Paris. Might you prefer a more fictionalized account with flowers and wine? I think I'll begin with the innocence, for I find it to be a preferable harbor, in many cases. 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We'd hardly been separated since our arrival in Paris, for if we were not playing for coins along the Boulevard, we found excitement in exploring the narrow back streets and alleyways. It was on one such night that he and I learned there was more to explore than we'd anticipated. We laughed like sailors as we leaned our backs against an old brick wall. In a sudden if sloppy motion, he spun himself around in front of me, drunk both on wine and the freedom of our youth, and planted his lips onto mine fully for at least a minute that to me felt instantaneous and timeless all in one. I was dumbfounded as he pulled back, laughed and wiped his mouth, while he stood there looking at me. I recall muttering something, asking him if he'd gone mad, or maybe I asked him if he even knew who I was. For all I knew he could have momentarily been lost to some fantasy of the maidens at the local taverns who for our pennies would give more than bread as sustenance. He merely laughed once more, and then with more deliberation he came against my chest, put his hands, those beautiful long fingers of his against my face, and kissed me, long and deep. I was helplessly pinned and left with nothing to do but wrap my arms around him and feel as if I was finally letting go of myself into something I'd wanted for so very long. We remained there, two anonymous young men lost to a passionate moment, until once more he stepped back. I still can recall, even after all this time, the soft texture of his lip against mine as it slowly peeled away from mine. Heaven then, though if I'd tried I couldn't have uttered a word, let alone describe what I felt. 

He looked at me as he'd done before, and took my hand in his like nothing had happened but a coincidental peck on the cheek. Away he led me toward our rooms, and when I protested and balked, insisting that he stop and look at me, he did so with his usual degree of seriousness. 

"Lestat, you're far too serious at times." He said, with the rich curl of our heritage coming through in his voice. "It's really not such an out of the ordinary thing for me to want to kiss you, and you obviously wanted to kiss me, so why must you make such an event of it now?" I suppose he knew me best even then, and he was right in the sense that I wanted him to stop right there on the avenue and lend me some drama. I wanted to know why tonight, after so many when he didn't give into the urge or … was it only born on this evening? I wanted to explore whether in fact I had such hidden desires as I'd felt them only moments before when he'd pressed so tight against me like no man before. Perhaps even then, I was striving and full of need to understand something that was perfect without explanation, and well beyond my wonderment. 

I followed him into the small cafe that of course in those days was nothing similar to the modern definition of the word and not really unlike the small Inn we'd known before we set out on our adventures. There were plenty more people naturally, talking over everything from business to art as they sat and drank together and feasting on a menu that might have fed our whole village. There were those regulars that knew our faces, and Nicolas was asked to play, but he declined with a short and modest laugh as he looked my way over the table where we'd wedged ourselves between several portly gentlemen. When they saw they couldn't rouse a tune from him, they became utterly disinterested in whatever we might have to say and proceeded with their boisterous, chewing mouths open discussions to which my friend and I raised a brow to acknowledge the crudely common and ill mannered habit, laughing even as we made the expressions. Who were we? Lords among the commoners, and loving every minute! 

Nicolas' eyes had always held fascination for me. They were deep and dark like the sort of lake a child would be terrified to swim in, and yet they were not menacing. Perhaps too, I had just the right attraction to danger to find them appealing. They held mine as we ate and talked of insignificant details. I knew that even as much as he'd dismissed the convivial intimacy that had passed between us in the alley, it was on his mind. Maybe it was more on mine and he knew that, and his eyes were merely searching my own for details of what I really thought of it before he spoke. Would he speak, I wondered? I sopped up the rest of my rich broth and tried to avert my gaze, thinking that if I just let the whole matter go, it would pass away into the morning. It was no good to look away. I felt him staring even when I looked at the dingy wooden floor beneath my feet. When once more I faced him it was clear to me that each of us must surely have been reading the other's thoughts. In mine most strongly there was one main question: Was it all so innocent, or we pursue it further and change the immediate course of our history together?


	4. Disclosure

We escaped the din of the room, he taking my hand in his once again as if we were secret conspirators creeping away to our next mission. The stairs to our room above were accessible by a flight of rickety iron steps, and as we ascended I thought to myself how grateful we'd be tonight for the warmth of a little fire. When a chill set in, the dampness could seem unbearable and with our meager earnings and help from those friends we'd made, scraps of wood were at our disposal. It was no palace that we shared but it was Paris, which had been his love and was now mine. 

Nicolas shut the door and was quick to toss the kindling into the fireplace. As he lit it, I sat down onto the floor on what was considered our bed. With money being what it was, and our means being nowhere close to affording a decent rental, the fact that he and I had slept side by side was nothing more than a scant detail in the coming and going of our lives. We were for all intents and purposes, brothers, and a fine shade better brother he was than any I'd ever slept with at home. Tonight though, as I sat there getting out of my street clothes, I considered for the first time that Nicolas de Lenfent and I were grown men, with grown bodies and emotions that obviously were grown as well, past the point of what moral brothers shared. I studied his form as he bent to tend the fire. The arch of his back, the shape of his calf as the stocking molded over the muscle, the way his breeches held his backside. Oh Lestat, I said to myself, stop this now before you burn right where you sit! Yet why should I not appreciate his body? Surely I appreciated my own youthful form that had always been amply endowed in muscle and definition. That was the granted conceit of youth and that we were the newest darlings of the theatre and street crowds lent us a greater claim to thinking such things. Still, as he turned to me, dusting off his hands before pulling his shirt off, I couldn't help but to feel some degree of embarrassment. I wasn't uninitiated when it came to matters of the flesh, but I had never experienced anything with a man, let alone one who had in such a short time become what Nicolas had become to me, and beyond that with what he and I were to one another. I looked away. For all I knew, those thoughts were utterly ridiculous, and what had happened earlier was just a passing whim brought on by the very freedom of Paris, for it was indeed intoxicating. 

"What's the matter with you, for God's sake? You look like you're about to be ill. Don't be bringing it up in here." He could be so crude at times, I thought. If he knew what I was thinking maybe it would be him wearing such an expression. 

"Nicolas, let me ask you something." I said, as I leaned back against the wall and made an effort to reassure myself or at least to appear that way outwardly. He settled himself on the chair that faced me, only one of two in our sparse accommodations. "Am I foolish to be sitting here confused about the things that have gone on tonight? All of a sudden I look at you and I wonder whether you've wanted to do what you did all along, and that is most unsettling." 

"Oh come on, now why is it… unsettling, Lestat?" He laughed so softly it was barely noticeable, but I knew it wasn't meant as mockery. He merely wanted to give me pause to think and interrupt what could become a tangent of garbled French when I was flustered. He himself looked calm and collected as he waited on my words and removed his shoes and stockings. "Come on, do tell me what you're thinking. I can almost see that brain of yours ticking behind your eyes. Really, I'm listening." 

"All right." I frowned a few times as I gathered my words. "The thing is then, that if you had wanted to do it all along… kiss me that is, I wonder why it is you didn't do it until tonight, and then in wondering that very thing, I began to wonder if that's in fact just what I wanted. You know how it is, one thought leads to another, and so I asked myself when we were at dinner, whether I wanted your advances to be more serious than you made them out to be. Even now this is what I'm asking myself!" 

"What is your question, Lestat? You asked me if you're foolish to be confused, and yet you just explained why you are confused, so evidently you are, for one fact. There's really no reason to put so much thought into such a little thing." He rose and removed his pants without a second thought while he grabbed his long nightshirt from the back of the chair. Before he put it on he sat again in the chair, his face reflecting none of my concern or worry. "It seems to me that you have to decide whether or not you want things to go on. As far as I'm concerned, tonight was nothing more than an impetuous kiss in the alley." He saw the sigh perhaps before he heard it, with the fall of my shoulders and change in my face. "That's not to say that I'd be opposed to it becoming more, should that be… well, something the two of us wished to commence." 

"So then, Nicolas, how will I know? How will we know?" 

"Lestat, you have to have immediate answers for everything? How like you to demand." He brought himself over to where I sat, and in only our thin undergarments, we sat together silently staring into the fire. "You know, that first day I saw you, do you remember it?" 

"When we were very young, or once you'd come back?" 

"When we were small boys." He confirmed. 

"Yes, I remember. Mother had brought me into the village and you were playing outside of your father's shop. I stopped to talk to you for a moment before I was sent on an errand for my father." 

"It was so brief, wasn't it, the time we spent together that day? But do you know, something inside of me knew how different you were. Honestly, I knew it even then. Though I was just stepping into the dawn of my manhood, I sensed it Lestat. There was something in you far different from what I was then just as there is now, indefinable, and I love you for it every night. There is positively no reason I wouldn't want you as both my friend and my lover - if it were only something you wanted as well. I'd never want to force your hand in that or anything else." 

I swallowed my nervousness and turned to look at him. With a smile that hopefully showed the mixture of my feelings, I brushed back the long, dark curls that fell against his shoulder. "Nicolas, I'm not at all sure I want such a thing. I've never… well, I never have you know. You have maybe for your travels, but not I. For now, it is enough to my mind that you love me, and I love you too. A better friend I could never have and perhaps that's where our relationship should remain, I do not know." 

A slow smile curled his lips inches from mine. "Lestat, you never cease to amaze me. You come off as so worldly and gallant, yet here you are confessing to me that you've never had the pleasures of another man? What's worse, you make it sound as if I've traveled brothels across the world!" I laughed and pushed against him. "Haven't you, Mr. Violinist? I'm sure the young men and women in this city were at your feet, or at least at the foot of your bed! You're strikingly handsome and you know it. Are you denying that you've known more fleshly pleasures than I, who was stuck fighting wolves in the forest while you were off entertaining everyone, namely yourself?" 

"Ah Lestat, you're such a dramatist! Suffering then, were you? You gained nothing from your experiences? To tell you the truth, I probably do have more experience in that area than you do, but not much more. It isn't as you suspect. I didn't have a different companion every night. I was devoted to my study of music!" I knew this much was true. Anyone who listened to him play would have heard the hours and days he'd devoted to his impassioned study and practice. Of course he had natural talent as well. I'd heard those who practiced relentlessly and succeeded only in sounding like a crescendo of wounded cats. Nicolas, he was a virtuoso, and someday he was going to be famous. 

"You had lovers though? Both?" 

"Both sexes, yes." He replied. He drew his knees up close and rested his hands around them. "What one feels is simply that, I think. It shouldn't matter what form it takes. Of course, there are those who would say differently I know, but then I've never been fond of doing things according to the common thought on how they should be done I suppose. You'd only have to ask my father about that. Hell, ask Mozart himself. But I don't want you to think that I was given to sleeping with anyone that put out an invitation, Lestat. I wasn't, nor am I now." His eyes flickered with the light of the now steadily low burning fire. "In fact, I only had one male lover while I was here in Paris studying. His name was Julian." "You never told me about him in any way? Why is it I don't know his name, Nicolas?" I moved so that my head was at his feet, and propped myself up to listen to him as he seemed to become lost in his memories. 

"Because Julian is dead, Lestat, and it pains me to discuss him." He said. I thought he would stop, but after a moment he continued. His voice was low and soft in the quiet of our room, and with the warmth, it could have lulled me to sleep if only there weren't such wistful sadness contained within the rise and fall of his words. Julian, he explained, had been an older man who studied with Mozart prior to his arrival for the same. He still came to see the Master now and again, and eventually he and Nicolas became friends. The love of the violin became something of a starting point for their relationship. One evening in the middle of a practice at Julian's flat, they'd sat for a break and begun to drink. That was soon after Nicolas had gone to Paris, and though he'd grown accustomed to cheap French country wine, the spirits that could be had in Paris were overwhelming to him. He went on to tell me that they'd started to play once more, but that he'd begged to lie down given the sudden intoxication he experienced. Julian had allowed him the use of his bed, and when Nicolas awoke a short time later, groggy and a bit sore in his head, there was the man beside him, touching him in a manner that felt heavenly, yet also scarier than anything he'd experienced. In the village where we lived, there had always been a larger number of girls than boys, so any young man might have ten companions should he choose, but so far as I knew, none of us who knew one another had ever crossed the line into discovering what each of us might do for or with one another. Nicolas told me that he wasn't a novice, lying there in the man's bed, but that it wasn't anything like he'd ever done before. Julian had said such sweet things to him and made him feel complete and loved that he might have allowed anything. So when they'd begun to kiss, he said, it seemed as natural as anything else. The rest was consummated with slow tenderness, and my friend had been enamored completely. He was in love with the man, uncaring of his age or gender. They spent days and nights together, Nicolas practically moving into the flat. It was blissful up until the day word got back to his father. It seemed that Julian had considerable financial holdings and one of the companies he conducted business with in turn had more than one employee who was all too willing to carry gossip with them as they came into our village for supplies or to trade. I thought to myself that they probably came there on that pretense just to gossip, for news was a sparse commodity in the village. Nicolas continued and I ran my hand up over his leg to find his fingers and pull them down into mine. He said that when his father got the idea that his son was committing such acts with a man, let alone a man that was old enough to be the father himself, he'd come into Paris, spoke with Master Mozart himself, and then directly gone to Julian's flat to confront him. Unfortunately, when his father arrived, Nicolas and his lover were drinking by the fire, and had it been just a short time later, they might have been in a much more compromising situation. Oh how it must have been when he burst in and began to scream insults and accusations at Julian. I heard the pain in the recollection as I stroked Nicki's hand. He smiled down at me. 

"It just, well, you might expect what happened from there, I'm sure." He said, quieting himself. A short smile wavered, as he tried to brush it off. "Go on if you want, Nicolas. I'm willing to listen. I've got all night, don't I?" It was true. We each had no place to be in the morning, or all the next day for that matter. Ah, the life of vagabond performers was good. "My father told Julian that if he didn't cease his perversions, he would not only kill him, but that he would kill me first. He was mad, Lestat. I'd never seen him so insane. He said he'd drag me by the hair and kill me right in front of Julian. What Julian had done to me, he said, was absolute and utter despicable sin, and if God himself wouldn't correct it, then he would. Can you imagine that?" 

"Your father? Yes, I can. Still, it's awful." 

"Julian was horrified more by my father's behavior than the threat, but he'd known enough men in his years to know that for certain, my father's words were not to be taken lightly. That night, my father dragged me home to the village with the threat that he'd do it that very night, right then and there and Lestat, dear God I tell you, I believe he was insane enough that he'd have killed Julian and I and then himself, and left three bloody corpses to rot in that beautiful place I'd come to think of as my home. He would have, I know it! There was nothing I could do but to go with him even as I screamed and punched at him, even as I wept and screamed for Julian to write to me, to come for me. There was nothing I could do. Nothing." He grew still and let his hand slip from mine as I sat up. I thought about what I'd said earlier in joking to him, about my having to stay home and suffer while he'd been gallivanted all over so sinfully. I felt like a cad for my thoughtlessness. He had in fact, fought his own demons there that in his voice still lingered like ghosts. 

"Nicolas, my God. I'm sorry. I didn't know. I… I didn't mean to say those things before. I didn't know any of your time with Julian. I'm sorry." It was all I could say, though it felt meaningless. 

"You couldn't have known. I never have told anyone, save for Master Mozart, and he didn't even want to know as much as I've told you tonight. You know now, I'm sure you suspect that the fiasco with Julian and my father was one of the reasons he sent me away from Paris. Then when I finally did go back home for good, in my defiant shame, my father busted the violin, saying that the instrument was damned, just as I was, evermore in my soul." 

"My Nicolas," I said, unthinking. "How extraordinarily awful. How deplorable. If I had known, I'd have marched straight up to your father and told him a thing or two, then I'd have stolen you away, straight up to our castle, for good. I'd never have let you stay there, not for another night!" 

"Always the fighter, you are. You'd have been my champion, yes, I'm sure. I was too ashamed, and though I barely said a word to my father since the night he threatened my life, in truth, I barely said a word to anyone. I was too filled with longing for another life that had been ripped from my fingers." 

"Then why… what made you come to me with such gifts as you did, beaming in your own finery? You looked remarkable to me on that day. I remember it vividly. There was no trace of maudlin." 

"Like I told you, I'd always seen something different in you Lestat. When you were in the wood like that and slay the wolves, the whole damned village was abuzz!. My father of course, lamented that he had a son who would rather pass his time buggering in Paris than protecting his family or home. No, don't look at me like that. I didn't feel any resentment toward you because of those bitter sentiments. My father is and was always a hard, impossible man. What happened was that you came into my mind more clearly.. By that I mean, I remembered you from the time we met, through all we'd seen as boys, and realized that I must renew our friendship. You see, your act, what you did that day in the forest, it renewed me. I no longer yearned for what I had lost, or at least it was diminished by the desire to align myself with one who would do the things you did. Perhaps it was that I wished I could have slain the wolf who was constantly growling at me and leaving invisible wounds." 

"Your father, yes?" I shifted my position and lay on my back, looking up at him. His eyes were damp and yet the sadness that had been in his voice was gone. In its place was the passion that he felt, that renewal that he'd tried to explain. 

"I once again thought about who you were, and I wanted to dress in finery and accompany you, to where I didn't know. Ah I was a fool, I suppose, rebounding from despair to mania as a means of escaping the drudgery of my every day. It's not that I didn't know your family wasn't of high means, Lestat. I mean to say I didn't expect that you'd all invite me in and there would be servants and great flowing goblets of wine and food to spare. Times were what they were, and we're not much better off now, you and I, but damned if I wasn't going to try to drag myself out of the pit that threatened to consume me. The day I collected that gaudy fur coat and presented it to you, I don't know what I was hoping, but it has led to this and my friend, I'll say to you now that whether I knew what I wanted then, or what I expected, this that you and I have is absolutely that dream. Do you believe me?" 

Now it was I who had dampness in my eyes. "Nicolas, my friend, I believe you, yes. I believe you and trust that you know this for me as well is dreamlike. That I am away from my brothers, and my own father who was perhaps just as bad as your own, that I can send a tiny bit of money to my mother, that I am here… Nicolas, love, that we are here, in this city you and I! We're here, acting and playing because we want to be here, because we believe in this and not for anyone but ourselves. That, my friend is beyond a dream to me, it is a miracle. There really is no one else I could think of to be here with me. It is I think, our destiny." 

He wiped his eyes and sat up straight. "Our destiny, yes. Perhaps. You always put things so well." He laughed. "Even if you are still dramatic." "I'm the actor, you're the musician. What can you expect?" I laughed louder and pulled him into my arms.


	5. Initiaton

As we sat there, each of us surely must have been in some way terrified of what may or may not come on the heels of such intense and intimate words shared between us. What might become of taking our friendship into the realm of being lovers? I thought about that for a silent second or two as he pulled me to him, begging with soft kisses along my neck that I not take too long in consideration and come once again to such pleasures. Surrendering to such invitation was easy and forgetting consequence or implication turned into effortless action in his arms. For what seemed time on end, we lay there impassioned, exchanging heated words while we felt the need escalate. Physically, there was no denial of what so proudly demanded more of this intimacy, and that part of him pressed into me as mine did to the yielding warmth of his body. Such things I had never felt, inside or out and through all of his kisses, I felt a sort of amazement that could have rightly stopped all such contortions and left me instead, sitting upright in fascinated repose. There was time for that later, I promised myself. 

"Nicolas wait," I pushed him away with a small laugh. The moisture from our kisses was a delicious humidity, and the flash of his smile told of his reluctant pause. "What, oh Nicolas… don't make me look like a fool. I have not done such things, and I'm rather clueless as to how, or even if we should go on." I grasped the firmness of his backside and gave it a squeeze that brought a little gasp of surprise and pleasure. His laughter was dark and easy, I thought as he sat up. 

"You're naivetי is charming, Lestat, but I suspect you have enough imagination to think of what men do together. No, don't look at me like that. I'm not teasing your innocence when it comes to this matter. But you must tell me, despite what your body displays, is this something you want to do?" He got up slowly and went over to throw more wood onto the fire. 

I think I fairly blushed and covered the lower half of myself so that the burgeoning desire there would not be so obvious. "It is, Nicolas. I would like to think of it all, what it would mean to you and I, and even more than that but I'm afraid I want more to give in to this lust. I cannot say that when I think of it, you and I doing the things that you accurately say come into my imagination, that it doesn't make me hungry in a way I've never known. Please, yes, my Nicolas, show me." 

It was all I had to say to him, and in the next instant we were both completely stripped of any remaining garments and in one another's arms. Together we stood face to face, chest to chest, need to need. A part of me wanted to stop, to dissect the reality of the moment, but no, not now. I reached instead, without a word, to explore that part of him that was warm and hard. The quiet sigh that escaped his mouth as he pulled me close was enough to encourage my touch upon him. As I eagerly felt him there, he moved so that each cleft and hollow there was seeking my fingers, and I found that I wanted only to pleasure him. When he pushed me away gently, I was surprised. I thought I had done something incorrectly but he assured me that it was only to make the experience last. I smiled at him and he kissed me. When he pulled back and looked into my eyes, such utter love I had never seen before from him or I daresay, from anyone. He began to touch me in the same way, and I thought for certain that I would end the whole affair before it had even a decent beginning. I winced not from pain, but from the overload to my senses. Then it was I who quietly insisted that he stop, at least in the present regard. 

To our little bed he pulled me, and I went to lie beside him. Truly, though I could well imagine the physical act as I told him, and I was not wholly ignorant of male relations, I still felt like a child in comparison to what he must possess in terms of that knowledge. I was rather unaccustomed to letting others take the lead but in this case I had no choice. All the while he was coaxing me with kisses, so a more willing pupil I couldn't have been. My back pressed against the now warm floor beneath, and Nicolas hovered above me. It seemed as if he were assessing the situation, or pausing to make sure that I was certain but I had never been more aware of him and how I wanted to fulfill the passions we shared. Gently he lowered himself down between the warmth of my legs, which I closed around the back of his thighs. For a moment, I felt the threat of laughter and as he looked down, he asked me what amusement I was pondering. 

"Only that I am lying here in such a way. I cannot help but to picture myself right where you are now my friend, and it being some village girl in my position." I laughed then, picturing it abstractly. 

"Oh but you're right, Lestat." He joined me in the humor. "You're about to receive me, yes? Just as those girls received you on those nights of fast, untended indiscretions, hm? But among the many differences, there is one that stands out." 

"And what is that, Nicolas? Enlighten me." I begged. With deliberation I moved beneath him, knowing from such past experiences with women that my body would brush him in critical areas. When he closed his eyes and shifted his weight more into the feeling, my effort was rewarded. 

"The difference, you delicious blond brat, is that this will not be as I said, untended. On those nights when you snuck away and found anonymous entertainments in the arms of some gypsy lass, it was careless and crude, done for the sake of rapid release. Not now, Lestat. I want to make love to you." 

I was touched by the interwoven humor and love in his words, and truly I knew the sincerity of them as he lowered to my lips and confirmed them with a long kiss, one in which the heat of his tongue found mine and brought from me a deep moan of longing. My arms wrapped around his back and pulled him hard, demanding more of whatever it was he chose to give.The press of him against me was thrilling and more than a bit intimidating. The position again reminded me of short interludes where I had been the dominator and indeed the one bent mostly on personal satisfaction. To have this, a man, and Nicolas no less, in such a position to instruct me, to coax and encourage me in such new lessons, was, I thought once again, overwhelming. Yet I yielded to him, and when it was needed, he would tell me to move one way or another with a patience I hadn't seen before. We increased the tension, minute by minute and for what seemed like hour upon hour. Equally we would rise and fall by degrees, letting that physical hardness subside minimally, prolonging our release through quiet words and touches. His mouth found me in places I had never imagined them, and I cried out, uncaring whether all of Paris would hear me. It could not be helped that when he was engaged in such ministrations, my first climax arrived. The feeling was electric and raging as it came, and Nicolas stroked me to completion as if he wanted to draw every last drop from the organ, and upon this, he fed as I watched, empty even of breath. Upward he crawled to bring the taste forth, to seal some sort of sacred circle by kissing me with the salty fluids upon his lips. I crashed against him, wanting more, hungry and eager somehow impossibly more than I'd been before. 

"Nicolas, please…" I begged. "Don't make me wait any more, please." Laughter graced my smile as I looked up into his eyes. "I can be patient no longer, lover. Please." He moved again between my legs and lifted them so that my hips were tilted upward. I moved my hands over his thighs as he knelt there staring at me. 

"You're not patient in the least, my friend. Evidence would say otherwise." He licked his lips in exaggeration and I smacked him lightly for his crudeness. With a short laugh, he pressed against me to widen the space he sought to possess and I allowed him that control. All I could do was watch his movements and let my own body respond with lift and relaxation to accommodate his insistence. I was not truly prepared however, when I felt him against me in a way that indicated imminent penetration. While his hands stroked my legs and wound beneath to open me wider, he reassured me gently and though I wasn't in the least afraid I was appreciative of that effort. Fear wasn't the word I would have used to describe my emotions. I wanted him intensely. I was only… apprehensive, yes… to the physical feel of it, and only because it was foreign to my senses. I wanted to savor each touch and so when he entered me slowly, the natural response was for me to draw in my breath and close my eyes. Each degree of his intrusion was comprehended in slow motion, electrical again, yes, that was the perfect description. I pulled at his back, damp with the perfume of his sweat, and it too became a part of the sensual portrait. His name escaped my lips as a confirmation or affirmation, for in that moment when he pressed that hardness into the well of my body, I could have slipped away into oblivion without regret. Once he filled me completely, he came down against my chest, still and quiet. 

"Open your eyes, Lestat." His chest pressed into mine and as a gentle persuasion, he thrust himself forward. "I want to see your eyes. I want to see how it feels for you." 

"Oh…" Such a little word, an insignificant little sound, but what more could I have uttered? My voice was soft and foreign in sound as I opened my eyes to look at him. "Nothing can describe this, Nicolas, nothing. Show me… take me as you will. Make love to me now, give this to me, please!" I rocked against him in an urgent motion, my hands once more grasping at his back to pull him in while my legs sought to do the same below. It took little more than that to get him going and there was no further need for explanation or sound as he gave himself to me while I, delirious with pleasure, moved to receive every turn. I wished I could step outside myself to see the way we must have looked. He rose and fell into me, and with each stroke pressed the renewed tumescence that lay against my skin, eager once more for it's own release. Nicolas seemed possessed, he breathed out broken words against my ear while he moved, and from him there was a desperate fury I'd never felt. When he raised up once more and gazed down to me, sweat laden tendrils fell against his eyes, and indeed he looked quite mad. The voice that came however, was, in those broken phrases, full of a lust that surpassed any other emotion. He was absolutely, fully taken by this act, and as well, I had become its slave. My legs were lifted with no effort by his strong hands, and as my back pressed harder into the floor, so too was he giving himself more deeply. I cried out once more, surprised when he returned it with a laugh. Yes, there was that cruelty in his eyes when I looked. He came down again, hard against my chest and bit at my lips with insatiable hunger. The pain of such intrusion was foremost in my mind until he established a slow rhythm. Even then, it was at once exquisite agony, mingled with intense arousal. Void of words, he pressed into me and moved with sweet repetition while my legs encircled him. 

"Lestat, Lestat," My name fell from his mouth over and over again, as if it were an accompanying chant to his thrusts. My nails dug into his backside, he growled in my ear, pushed harder … and then abruptly his body slowed down until he lay half on, half beside me with his breath coming short and gasping. 

I ventured to question him quietly, "What… did you?" I did not know if he had, if we were… if this was completion, or what the sudden change implied. He smiled, looked down into my face and kissed my lips softly. 

"No worries now, this isn't over. Not by far. I only wanted to catch my breath and … prolong things for myself. I hate to sound repetitive, but it's important." He then came free of my body and lay on his side to trail one of his graceful, strong hands down my chest. "To prolong them for you as well, lover, and to make them better, perhaps. This is but one of the things I learned in my time away from home. Now let me use these skills, won't you?" He touched me in sensitive places that reacted with small twitches, perhaps to indicate the implacable need that had been born throughout my body for him. That elicited another small laugh born of some delight at the command he now held over my senses. 

"Would it be foolish of me to ask what you now think of all this Lestat?" He pondered like some interested professor at my side. Ask me? Hell, I could write a full sermon on the rapture I felt and preach it to the parishioners at Notre Dame! That made me laugh in turn and I looked into his eyes with the sudden threat of tears in my own. 

"This is nothing I ever could have imagined. Never. It … it is glorious, Nicki, glorious, you and I in this way? There is everything within this act, and my God how it … it is nothing at all like my dealings with women, just as you said. It is amazing." 

"Ah, now you like this a hell of a lot more, I'll bet." He smiled and moved away. Up slowly he left the warmth of my body to stoke the fireplace once more. When he paused and took a long drink from the bottle of wine I couldn't help but to appraise his physique. He was heavier than I, though not an ounce of it was excessive. His lean muscles seemed to me a statue that had come to life, carved, rounded and exquisitely appealing. I watched each move he made, nodded in agreement with his remarks and wished only that he were once more inside of me, instead of filling the space with talk, but I understood his reason. It rather amazed me that in just this night, hell, in just the past hour or so, he'd created this degree of longing. It was encompassing and perfect, I though as I lay my head back. My eyes closed and with a smile the image of him came into my mind. Back lit by the fire, youthful and lean, half aroused, and so very, very… When he came to be beside me again, his head came to rest on my chest and I buried my fingers in that hair that had always reminded me of some wild peasant boy from the far hills who'd run all day chasing some devilish dream. He was windswept and wild, Nicolas de Lenfent, and he was mine now, as surely and I was his. We had become something more perfect here in one another's arms, warm and secret in dark of the Paris night. I let my fingers move down his side and lower to that span of only slightly diminished flesh. He moaned and moved against my palm, which caused my fingers to instinctively curl. In an instant it seemed he'd grown full once more, and this time, I was not only ready, but also eager to have him. Quietly I asked for more, but once again he surprised me. He sat himself half up and from behind his back produced the board that had been on the table, which held a half-stale loaf of bread and a bottle of oil left over from our less than occasional attempts at eating here in our home. I looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. 

"Now we're going to eat? Now?" He broke into full laughter then at the obvious disapproval on my face. "Seriously man. I know you need nourishment and fuel for this act, but now?" 

"Rest your beautiful head, Lestat. I'm not going to break bread with you in the middle of our lovemaking, even if we might both consider what we're doing to be sacred." In response to my puzzled look, he continued. "I should have thought of it before, but I was overwhelmed with the idea of taking you. This, my innocent lover," He indicated the bottle on the board and lifted it with one hand, "Will make the next of what we do together much more pleasant." 

For a minute I did not comprehend, and likely looking quite daft, stared at him. He kindly took the stop from the bottle and poured some of the rich oil out onto my hip. With one finger he swirled it around and made a comment about how slippery it was and how it could, he supposed, make other things slippery as well. Ah, yes, now I understood the implication. I felt like a fool but of course gave no indication of it as I smiled and agreed that probably yes, it could. When he moved those slick fingers around behind me, I did not hesitate to move closer to him. It brought us on our sides, face to face and as he began to kiss me deeply, I felt his hand move lower, and those fingers probe into the place he'd inhabited only a short time before. My mouth, captured by his could not make more than a muffled sound of surprise as he did this, but my body, yes, that must have operated on some level outside of my control apparently, for instead of being hesitant or inching off, without thought I moved backward to receive more of this new pleasure. Eye to eye, the depth of our kiss broken, Nicolas stared at me while he whispered such things I longed to hear: How he wanted me; how he had always wanted me! I wanted nothing else. I was just as mad for his touch, as he was mad to give it over and over. 

He moved until he was sat up and somewhat behind me. With his other hand, once more he tipped the bottle while masterfully continuing what his other hand had begun. The stuff spilled out onto the floor dark and pungent, but neither of us cared. We were tough and dirty little Frenchmen, he and I, our nobility cast aside in the days and nights we shared. This… what we were creating this night… this was all that mattered, all that would really matter for the rest of our lives I felt. His free hand was covered in oil, and this he brought against the hardness between my legs that reacted as before. While he made a complete mess of me there, I was nearly brought to a scream for how good it felt coupled with the invasion of his fingers behind. He watched me, minute by minute, and finally I regained some of my usual command and assertion. I moved away before he could make me stay for more of his torment. When he sat up fully, I moved fast and hard to push him against the wall. A storm had been brewed inside of me, and I could withstand it no longer. 

"Damn you Nicolas, you are a horrid soul to torture me this way and you know it!" I panted as I sat unashamed, bare and warm in his lap unthinking of what other deeds that might bring. Indeed, he seized the opportunity and leaned forward to bite down into my collarbone while he reached to stroke me once more. Damn him, I was trapped, and there was nothing to do but surrender once more. Wait, I said to myself, perhaps there was something I could do to level the field. When he raised up from his self appointed feast, I leaned down before he had another chance, and my mouth took hold of one nipple that raised proudly on his smooth chest. I bit and licked and circled my head around, delighting in the sounds he made. I turned my attention to the other in turn, moving accordingly when he ran his hands over my back. Oh if this could last indefinitely, I would dissolve into the substance of it, remaining content for nothing else. I sensed him lean to one side, and I raised up to see him grabbing his clothing that he'd cast aside earlier. Before I could ask, he threw it in front of me in a pile. 

"Let me have you, Lestat. I want it as much if not more." He rose up, and effectively pushed me off of him and onto the material where I knelt to watch his direction. "On your hands and knees. I'll take you from behind." When he saw my mixed reaction, he smiled and promised to be gentle. It wasn't that I thought he would be too harsh, it was just that for a moment, I couldn't imagine not seeing his face as I had before. Without further prelude, he was pressed against me there and the heated hardness of his body slipped up and down against mine in such a natural way, that for just a second, gone before I could grasp it, there came the question why he and I had never done this before tonight. Again, somewhere in my mind I filed that away for later. Now, there was nothing to focus on but the feeling as he pushed his hand underneath and into the sweat of my hair, grabbed on, and entered me slowly. Had I been weaker, and not the strapping youth I was, the very feeling of such union may have been enough to cause my collapse. As it was, I closed my eyes as my senses reeled. Collectively, he and I seemed to make one sound, and it was for a moment, the only thing in the room. Time and space seemed to be on hold for the briefest of instants, until he moved inside me. Steadily, as he watched my response, the rhythm was begun and in it, I was once again dazed and elevated to some new height. That I could not hold him, touch him, or see into his face while passion overtook him was merely an additional agitation to my already overloaded system. I clutched at the scraps of his clothing and could easily have torn them to bits for want of his flesh. 

"Nicolas, damn you, yes!" I shouted, again not with a care as to who might hear. "You do this to me and leave me incapable of touching you. So damnably unfair, Nicolas!" 

"Soon enough, Lestat," He said in between the panted breaths. "Soon enough." To emphasize that he was not finished, or perhaps to tease me more, he ground against me and rolled his hips as a Persian dancer might have done. I groaned and pushed back against him while I lowered my upper body down. That part of me was for him now to claim, and I took everything he gave, each thrust, each withdrawal and I wanted only more. Every subtle movement I made brought a slightly different sensation. When he reached below to fondle what stood in needful attention, I thought surely it would be the end for me. Instead, when I lifted only a little, it was Nicolas who cried out, his attention on me diverted. He brought his hand up and clamped it hard upon my shoulder. 

"Lestat, I cannot…" He struggled to get the words out wholly. "I cannot wait… now. Have to…" I knew what he meant if for no other reason than the strain in his voice and the expression on his face when I turned my head back to look. He had arrived at and desperately needed his own release, and in a voice harsh and deep, I begged him to fill me. His other hand came to rest on my hip and dug in as he gave it all to me. The warm, almost pressured feeling was overwhelming, and my soft cry was drowned out by his louder voice that expressed something in between pain and ecstasy. He thrust forward to plant within me everything he'd been prolonging for a time well beyond this evening, and then with a final rotation of his hips, he collapsed down over my back with a great heave of breath as he brought his arms around and stroked my chest with tenderness that seemed somehow to be more for his own re-anchoring than my pleasure. He whispered my name in soft repetition, and I longed to hold him. What he had done, what we had done in this act was unsurpassable. At the same time, he rose up while I moved beneath. The only regret was the slip of him from within, yet in a single motion, fulfillment came when once more he was against me and my arms encircled the firmness of his muscular body. He laughed softly and played his lips against mine while we spoke in a low whisper. 

"Don't think I've forgotten about your needs, Lestat. Oh, I haven't forgotten at all, don't worry!" 

For a minute I was puzzled. What need did I have but for this picture of he and I together in such a way? He answered that thought with a harder press of his mouth that led his tongue to volley with my own. In short time as he lay atop me, I became once again aware of the need to which he'd referred yet it hardly mattered. What we'd done, the enormity of it filled my mind and soul, and truly, even though I imagined anything else he might do to me with an anticipatory thrill, I would have been happy merely to rest by his side, and think on what might lie in store. 

Nicolas though, had other ideas. As time passed seamlessly, he again pleasured me as he let his mouth, tongue and lips find me in places that had never imagined such touches. Each time he was rewarded with the expression he sought, and the hunger he displayed left me happily weak and rapt with amazement. Whether it had been Julian who taught him such intricate skill or a thousand other Parisian lovers, I cared not. All I could do was surrender to the insane desire he possessed until finally he seemed to find satiation and collapse at my side. Dawn had begun to break outside of the room's small windows and as I turned over toward him to stroke the dampened curls against his forehead, a sliver of sunlight moved over his face. For a brief instant, it passed over his dark eyes as they closed, and then it was gone. Such illumination was a sight to behold and silently I wished for more to no avail. He laughed softly as some thought passed through his mind, and I let out a long and satisfied sigh. 

"Nicolas, my God, such things you have done to me!" The words came out in that sigh of my exhaustion and brought from him a greater degree of laughter. His arm went around my waist as he propped himself up to look at me. 

"Oh Lestat, it is nothing I haven't thought of doing to you time and time again. You should see yourself up there on the stage after all, with your shiny tights enhancing the treasure that lay beneath. I would venture to say that I'm not the only one who's noticed and thought of having a taste." With an exaggerative roll of his eyes to emphasize his claim, he stretched to retrieve one of the few blankets we had. He threw it over our nakedness, and settled back down 

I laughed out loud as I imagined him staring at me in such a fashion while I stood in the foot lights and recited my lines. "Nicolas, few but you could be so explicitly crude and make me want only more of such words. But I mean this you know, what things you've done tonight, there is positively nothing I can say that would capture my sentiments. To say that I am satisfied, or content, or happy… those descriptions seem unworthy. I never thought that we would…" My voice trailed off as I watched him. He was deservedly tired, and his eyes were half closed. I wondered if he had even heard. 

"Yes, you never thought… I had to claim you before someone else." How soft his voice had become as sleep approached. The childlike quality was an endearing change from the rich timbre and command that usually resonated in abundance. 

I brushed his hair back and placed a kiss on his forehead. There was nothing more I could say, for he was lost to that forbidden space between wakefulness and surrender to his dreams. What would I dream if I were Nicolas? In place of words, I pulled him closer and it was enough, that quiet perfection, to lull me gently into sated slumber until midday light broke through the clouds.


	6. Implications

The two of us in turn stretched and stirred as we lay in the intruding brightness of the day, but as ever we were slow to rise. That morning in particular we each felt a greater reason to linger, and that was to enjoy one another's presence in this our first morning as lovers. We turned and indulged in quiet conversation and touches before he announced that for all his manly efforts, he was absolutely famished. I had to confess that I too could have eaten half the tavern's kitchen. 

We dressed and headed out for the day, first to our usual stop downstairs to see what might be left over from the previous night for two fairly poor performers like us. Now often times what we might reap from such a visit was dependant on who manned the kitchen. When I spotted Sophia in the kitchen as we approached from the back door, I had to laugh. Sophia would have given Nicolas and I the best of anything if either of us would have smiled her way - and we did, often. She hurried us in and set us right up with large bowls of beef stew and warm, crusty bread. I nearly choked as we were eating when Nicolas piped up and asked if we could steal away a bottle of oil for what bread we were going to take with us. Scoundrel. He looked sidelong at me and started to laugh while I said nothing but smirked as I furrowed my brows. Of course our kitchen goddess was happy to accommodate our hungers. I figured that she'd have been all too obliging in other areas as well had we indicated a desire toward that end. I wondered as the warmth of the stew filled me, whether Nicolas had ever known pleasures with women, or if he had singularly known only Julian. I found myself thinking about my thoughts even as they happened, wondering why I questioned the matter. Still, I told myself, in some ways it would be sad if the only tenderness and love in addition to the physical experience had been with a man that was so rudely ripped from his life. Why hadn't Julian ever contacted him? I bet silently that he had, and that no letters or word had ever reached my friend, most deliberately. Yet how could I question fate? We were together now after all and if he had not come back home and thought of me in his despair, if he had not been there to overhear all of the town gossip, he might never have come into my life as he was now. I emptied my bowl ahead of Nicki and nodded that yes I'd have more. He turned to look at me with a smile that anyone might have read to mean more than a simple acknowledgement. I lowered my eyes a little but smiled at him in return. I didn't much know how he felt about our new status so far as public appearance, but I was uncertain. Of course there were homosexuals both secret and notorious, far and wide. The scandals surrounding the fact were an inescapable fact, particularly in this region it seemed. He and I were trying to get ourselves established as worthy performers and I frowned with the realization that if the wrong people knew of our liaisons it might well inhibit our progress or worse. My frown deepened at the possibility. This was Paris, damn it, free and wide open for whatever we'd wanted, wasn't that why we'd come? Why should we not be able to be lovers if only for the simplicity of the fact, like what Descartes had written, yes? We love, therefore we are? 

"Something troubling you, Lestat?" 

"I was just thinking of… public opinion, I suppose." A chunk of bread broke in my hands and showered crumbs all over the table. "It's really not fair, I'm thinking, if we have to hide away what we have now. 

"We," I looked up to make sure Sophia had gone into another room before I continued. "We do have something, now, right?" 

He laughed outright and slapped the table, which startled me only until I laughed too and jabbed his arm with my finger for his teasing. "Yes, of course, we have something. We have it, don't we, Together, you and I." He settled himself back into the chair, which I watched as it tipped backward. There was a mix of emotions that came onto his face that ranged from a confirmation of his words to me, to something intangible, something darker but humored. No, humor wasn't the right word for what I saw. It was almost as if in the next instant he could have come up out of the chair with a sneer on his face and his hands around my throat. It always moved me, that spectrum that was Nicolas and always had been, but yet it frightened me more than I ever said to anyone. Since I hadn't finished, he excused himself outside to wait for me and talk to the shopkeeper next door. I could see him through the dingy glass panes. 

"Monsieur Lestat," Sophia had come for our dishes. "Your friend, he is all right?" I nodded while I wiped the corners of my mouth. "I like the mornings when the two of you come to eat. It livens up these rooms." 

"You are a special treasure, Sophia. Nicolas and I might perish without you!" I put my hand on her shoulder to casually affirm my gratitude, and she hesitated before our bowls slipped into the water beneath her fingers. "I'm sorry, did I say something rude?" "No, no…" She assured me. "It is I who has said things out of place, Monsieur." I was puzzled but insisted with my best smile that she leave out the formality and call me by my name. We were after all the same age she and I, and it made me feel out of place somehow to be referred to with such prefaces. 

"What do you mean you've said something out of place? Sophia, you've never been anything but gracious and humble. What is it you're thinking?" 

"No, I should not comment further Monsieur… Lestat. You and Monsieur de Lenfent are welcome in the kitchen whenever you may see me here. That is enough." She turned away but put on a little smile for good measure when she looked at me over her shoulder. "You'd better go on now. That one, he looks to me as if he might not be one to keep waiting for long." 

I looked at her for another moment or two, still trying to break apart her words and find the meaning inside. Then in silent agreement to what she'd said, I went out to join Nicolas after thanking her with a quick kiss upon the cheek and a vow to myself to further explore her insinuations. He had walked around to the little alley that led nearly straight to the theatre and leaned against the crumbling bricks to wait for me. We headed off toward the place that had become our second home and in my heart I hoped we would find continued acceptance there, whether or not any of the others came to know the change in our relationship. The streets rumbled with life and creative people, with painters set up on random corners, or vendors selling from flowers to perfume, and yes there was my trusted scribe who wrote the letters home to Gabrielle. It was a heady tapestry and the love I felt for this place was not idle or passive. I fairly wanted to roll myself down the boulevard in gleeful praise of all that awaited me here. Now that I had Nicolas in such a way, it really was all I could do to contain my enthusiasm, and so I swept up his hand in mine and spun him around unsteadily, laughing all the while until we reached the clearing onto the street and the few gathered there raised a collective brow, suspecting that maybe we were drunk and debauched at that hour. We pressed past them and struggled to be the forthright gentlemen that we should be, onward and into our dark little theatre where the smell of oil and dusty clothes surrounded us like eager friends. Once inside we had to stand for several minutes as our eyes adjusted, and as we did, I felt his hand in mine more firmly than it had been outside in our jesting. I squeezed it tightly, maybe in confirmation, maybe in reassurance, I didn't know. I wanted to tell him so many things that had not yet found the strength to transform themselves from incalculable emotions to tangible expressions. He pulled me backward, closer to him as he stood near the back wall, and when I came close to his side, he leaned over to mold himself against my chest and raise his lips to just under my chin and whisper soft kisses there. Nicolas… quietly his name, the word I'd said a thousand times before flowed through my mind. Everything stirred and awoke with his touch, and I wanted the sheltering darkness, I wanted to pull him away into the shadows and feel his mouth upon me in the way he seemed to crave. As I caressed him, that urge increased but by some miracle of will I pushed him away with a soft laugh. 

"You're a fiend, Nicolas." I told him. "People are expecting us you know. We hardly showed up here at all yesterday, and you have the new sonata to work on." 

"I'd rather work on you, Lestat. I didn't think you'd object." The pout on his lips as he straightened himself up was almost worth my scolding. 

"Oh, I don't object, believe me. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't eager to be home with you as soon as possible to go over your lessons." 

"You were such a good pupil though." He laughed as he walked ahead of me, down between the seats and around through the back curtains that led to our dressing rooms, props, and all of the backstage magic we'd come to know and love. 

From the area where we would sit for our makeup and wardrobe there emerged our friends Margot and Oliver. They, as a powerfully creative duo, were responsible for dressing me up in any manner of costume to entertain the masses, or so I liked to think. Today I was due for a fitting of the newest look I was to wear in our upcoming production, and as much as I would have rather been at home and otherwise occupied, there was a part of me that enjoyed the pampered fuss of it all, most probably because it was so much a part of my acting dreams fulfilled. They looked Nicki and I over as if we had to pass some inspection, and then with a short nod and a warm smile, greeted us and crowded us into the room. I was pulled away as they chattered to one another one to each side of me as we walked. Surely they asked me my opinions or inquired about preferences in material or color as they always did but I found that instead of listening, I looked around to see where Nicolas had gone, only to realize that he'd left me to such insignificant ministrations while he in all likelihood went in search of his violin.


	7. Whispers

"No! I can't sit down for this just yet, Margot!" I said crossly as she hustled me into a chair. "Really, love, just give me a little time, won't you? I know these things need done and you're the best at what you do of course darling, but really, do you want to work on me when I'm filthy as a beggar boy and in need of a good scrub? I need to go and use the bath, at least for just a while so I'm at least not offensive to your cute little nose." I gave her my best smile and pleaded with my eyes when all the while I knew she'd give in and let me have my way. At times it made me laugh with giddy excitement when I realized I was really the darling of this little theatre. It was more than what I did on stage, and it was more than the camaraderie we all shared behind the scenes. More to the point it was that in that companionship, there was family to be had, and it seemed at times as if I were the son they'd lost so long ago, come home to them once more. Margot nodded with a sigh as she looked around for someone else to primp and I got up and headed to find clean water. 

There was a working bath in the back, usually overrun by the girls and littered with their makeup and stockings, and I made my way there only momentarily deterred by several people along the way who wanted to know one thing or another about my plans for the performance. I found great amusement in the fact that they knew in such a short time, that I brought unpredictability to their little theatre. Some nights on the stage I might be profound and serious, with tears coming readily to my eyes, and on others, I might well leap off the stage if the thought possessed me. When I finally reached the bath, I was disappointed to hear someone already behind the curtain enjoying the splash of fresh, clean water. Resigned, I sat down on one of the crates after pushing a few delicate garments aside. I thought about Nicolas, not only for what we'd done together in the past night, but more in a moving picture reel of how things had transpired since the day he came with the gift. I was lost in the memory until I heard a low hum that lilted upward into a familiar melody. With a cock of my head I realized who it must be that was in the bath, and sure enough when I dared to pull back the curtain, there sat my friend with his black hair slicked back, and a perfectly content expression on his face. He looked at me with surprise, "I see we both had the same idea then. Weren't you supposed to get fitted?" 

"Yes of course I was, but I thought I might be a gentleman and get clean first so I didn't smell of our lustful activity." I laughed for looking so matter of fact when I said that to him. "Well maybe not a gentleman. Maybe I just wanted to get clean so you could get me dirty all over again. You look very inviting you know, wet like that." I got down beside the bath and ran my fingers in the water. 

"Lestat, not here. Really. We have to be careful, even as much as either of us might want to be otherwise." 

"I know. I'll behave. Are you almost done then?" I asked as I stood and took off my clothes. If I couldn't indulge, then I could at least let him look and think perhaps of what our evening might have in store. "Why do we have to be so careful anyhow Nicolas? This city is full of fancy men, I'll say. Think of it, the artists and writers we've heard of and so wish to meet? Do you not think more than a few of them are inclined toward male lovers?" 

"Oh I know they are!" He rose from the bathwater and I made no attempt to disguise my admiration while I looked at the shine of water along his torso and then let my eyes lower to that part of him that had pleasured me so thoroughly. "I know it very well. We'll talk about that later tonight at home, all right? You just need to believe me when I say that whether or not the artists and poets seem somehow glorified and mysterious in their persuasions, one needs to exercise discretion, unless they're prepared for some serious consequences." He reached for a bit of cloth to dry off, and grabbed up his clothes. In a change from the seriousness of his words, he looked around and then stepped closer to me and offered just a small kiss upon my cheek. "I'd never turn you down, Lestat, but I don't want either of us to wind up with regret for what we've just begun." 

How could I feel such love for him inside and not burst wide open from the warmth of it? I touched his face gently and stepped into the water, pleased to feel that it was still fairly warm. "I don't think regret is possible Nicolas, at least not for what we've begun as you say. Only perhaps that we didn't begin it sooner and that we apparently are not allowed to rejoice in one another." He gave me a little smile and assured me that he'd meet up with me later that evening at home. He didn't have much to do other than practice, and often he did that in various places out in the city, much to the delight of all who passed. By far, from the fact that he'd lived here before, and the unintentional concerts he gave the public, he was better known than I, at least in form if not in name. Many of the people who came to the theatre didn't bother to know who it was that played such haunting, whirling tunes for the actors on the stage, for it was most often the case that Nicolas was not the lone musician to accompany the troupe. He was so skilled however, that on more than one night, he took over, after we'd come back for our final bow, and he filled the room with power when he played. As I washed myself, I pictured quite clearly how he'd look with his eyes closed, his head laid against the violin as if it were his lover, and he was lost to some bittersweet memory they shared. 

The water was restorative, and I laid my head down on the back of the bath to let my thoughts wander into nothingness. I really was fatigued for the experience of the night before, and the little sleep we'd gotten. I could not complain however, for I'd spent nights past getting more fatigued by far less pleasurable tasks. The titter of girlish laughter stirred my from my stupor, and I looked up to see Colette, the young lady I would be in the performance with in a few evenings. From where she stood, quite rudely I thought, she could see right down into the water. She covered her mouth when I looked at her. 

"What the hell are you doing here?" I demanded in a harsher voice than I'd intended. Really though, who would think to just walk in on my privacy? 

"Oh, Monsieur Lestat, do not be so unkind. I saw you come to the bath and I thought perhaps you would like me to tend to you?" 

"Tend to me? What do you mean? I don't need any assistance and you know that, Colette." I glared at her while I sat up and covered myself. It did little good when she'd already seen what there was beneath the water, but she damn sure didn't need to ogle me. 

"Lestat, please, listen to me for a moment. Don't be so cruel to me." She came closer and leaned toward me as I sat there. "I've noticed how you are, Lestat. All the girls want you, and you know it. You could have your pick of any of them at any time for one night or a week. If you're taking advantage of that, you're very discreet, but I think it's something else." I listened with renewed interest. Surely she didn't know I was, that I had … with Nicolas. "You want a woman, not a girl. You want someone who's had some experience, am I right?" I stared at her with my mouth half open, unable to reply. "It's clear to me that for all your flirtatious ways Lestat, you've never really had a more mature woman, and at the risk of your thinking I'm the loosest lady in Paris, I'd very much like the chance to show you what you've been missing." 

I was flabbergasted. I think my mouth still hung open as she dipped her hand in the bathwater just as I'd done with Nicolas. I stammered, and spit out that yes, she was right but that it wasn't the time. No… yes, I was sure, of course I wouldn't think badly of her, and whatever else my brain could think of at the time. All I really wanted was to get out of the water and into the bright warmth of the costume area, to pretend this hadn't happened. Still her hand reached for me, even as she was told that it wasn't acceptable. When her nails trailed down my chest and then found me further down, I gasped out loud. 

"Colette, stop. Now. I don't want to make things difficult for us on the stage, darling." I figured to get her to understand me I'd have to be charming if I was not going to give into what she evidently wanted. "Believe me, it isn't that I'm not well aware of what we could have in that way, for I've thought about it more than once." That wasn't a lie, and she smiled while she pulled her hand away and stood. "Yes, I've thought about it, and you're right to say that most of the girls my age, while voluptuous and enticing, aren't more than a passing fancy." I reached for my shirt and covered myself with it as I stood and stepped backward out of the bath. She let her eyes travel up my body and with a sigh she resigned herself to the fact that she hadn't succeeded in her proposal and seduction. I promised her that I wasn't offended, and that she'd see that things were still top notch when the time came for us to be on the stage together. When she'd gone, I let out my own sigh of relief as I quickly dressed. To say that I was rattled was an understatement, but when I arrived at the place where I'd left Margot, she didn't give me time to get lost in what had happened. Soon enough I was fitted in blue brocade that felt tight on every curve of my body. When I complained, she hushed me, saying that every woman in Paris would approve of the fit, and that was what kept our tickets selling steadily. I had to laugh at that. So I was that kind of puppet then, the blonde devil in blue brocade finery: Come ladies, see the way he moves! I'd move all right. I'd give them something to look at, indeed! 

Once I was fitted in my silk, lace and tights, I walked out as usual onto the empty stage to see how it felt. It was a silly thing to do I supposed, but I didn't like to go on feeling as if I'd never been there before, and to me, each performance brought that feeling, as if I'd only just arrived to make my debut. I strolled toward the footlights and looked up into the darkness of the balcony. A full smile came to my face when I recalled the previous play, where several of our young friends had leaned dangerously over the railing to throw flowers and whoop out loud calls of approval. The place had a life of it's own, and as I stood there alone, I felt profoundly a part of that life. The theatre itself had become my mother and my father, my home. The cast and musicians, the costumers… they were my siblings, and I loved them all. If it weren't for a noise in the back of the room, in the seats beyond the range of my eyes, I might have wept as I stood there. 

"Colin, is that you?" I called out. He was something, that boy. He was a rough Irish brute with the heart of a child. While he looked like he could tear you limb from limb, he'd speak and the gentleness in his voice would tell you of his true nature. He was in charge of props and maintenance, but when I called out his name once more, there was no reply. 

"Hello? Rene? Philip?" Still there remained only silence, but there was definitely someone there. I walked to the steps on the side of the stage, thinking that it was one of them playing tricks. When I moved into the shadows and pulled back the thick velvet curtain, a voice came more into my head than anything anyone else might have heard. One word it said and I spun around, startled. 

"Who's there?" I shouted out into the dark seats. "Show yourself to me now, who is it that speaks?" There it was again, the voice, more inside my head. Infuriating it was, the distraction that caused me to stop my own insistent voice. 

"So proud, little lord wolf killer." The voice whispered inside my mind. Damn! Who the hell was this? Was Nicolas be sitting out there snickering to himself as he played some sort of joke on me? Surely this voice could not belong to him. I stormed to the side of the stage and down the steps, determined to find the source. I ran to the back row of seats and across, down the center aisle and back but there was no one at all to be found. The seats were empty and I stood there, angry and puzzled for several minutes, before I narrowed my eyes and stalked off to get out of my outfit. I didn't have a high tolerance for things I didn't understand. I hated to feel foolish or stupid, and when I walked back into the costume area, I tugged at my ascot impatiently, for I felt both degradations at once. Oliver grabbed my hands in his, fearful that I'd tear the lace beyond repair. He asked what had gotten me so riled, and whatever explanation I would have given him would only have angered me further so I protested, and eventually he left me alone. I removed the brocade with greater care, for truly I never lost appreciation for such finery, and I did want to look striking when I hit the stage. The words came back into my mind, but they were so troubling I pushed them away. I would not even think on them now, damn it. Whoever it was that thought themselves so humorous was long gone from the seats, likely having a good laugh at my outrage. When that thought arose, I was more determined than ever to appear carefree. Why should I give them the satisfaction? I huffed and got into my street clothes with only a cursory glance at Colette when she passed through the room. I checked the time and decided that I'd had enough for one day. I wanted to go home.


	8. Fusion

It had begun to rain while I was inside the theatre, and as I walked toward our little apartment, my mood was dismal and in further decline. There was a part of me that didn't even want to go up those narrow stairs to pass the time with what little we had. I told myself I was selfish to whine about what we had or didn't have. Most of the time I was elated just to be here in Paris, doing just what I'd always dreamed. Today however, my spirit had faltered and an unusual pessimism had settled in like the mist and fog that shrouded my path. It had always been exceedingly difficult for me to find patience in any given circumstance, and while I might have said to myself that great things would happen in time for Nicolas and I, there was a child inside that wanted, if not demanded that it happen immediately. I shook my head with a laugh as I reached the doorway of the restaurant and tavern. There was a relatively small patronage given the hour, and I decided to pass some time and perhaps bolster my spirits with a meal and some wine. I even had money to pay for it, and that fact alone made me smile. I imagined the handouts and secret missions to the kitchen wouldn't cease even if I had hundreds to spend, for they were more to please our impulses than true necessity. Nicki and I weren't going to starve if we continued to progress as we had, and that knowledge came, quietly confirmed in my thoughts as I sat down. It too offered some respite from my prior emotions. 

Arnoux came around from behind the counter to greet me as I sat down. He was a great bear of a man, and had I not known him as I did, I would have been among the many who were intimidated by his appearance. This was Sophia's father, and from him she had gotten her usually jocose personality and thankfully not his shape. Her dark eyes, hair, and even her name had come from her mother, and the Italian descendants before. Even now I could hear broken verses as she alternately sang and hummed in the relative quiet of the kitchen. Yes, my spirits were lifted and improving now that I was among my new friends. I ordered a hearty bowl of soup, which for some may not have seemed like much of a meal, but this was no countryside-thin broth. Thick, hand-formed balls of dough floated alongside big pieces of meat, and it was a sumptuous taste for an inexpensive ticket. I talked with Arnoux as I ladled spoon after spoon into my belly. He was grumbling as usual about current politics, the arts, anything really, almost more to hear his own opinions and it struck me that perhaps for all his jocularity, he might be a lonely man. I hardly ever saw his wife, and I suspected he spent many hours here in this place, with only his customers to keep him sane. That caused me to frown momentarily, but I resolved that I would not slip back into melancholia. When I heard the front door swing shut with it's usual bang, I turned to see Nicolas headed toward me. 

"I wondered where you'd gotten to in this weather!" He sat down across from me after shouting his own hello to our father and sister who were preparing for the evening crowds. "Did you walk home in the worst of this? Everyone is saying it will get worse." He appeared for a second to be luminous, his skin shining from the rain and the arc of light above him. It caused a strange, elusive thought to cross my mind, but I let it pass in my comfort with his presence. 

"It's not so bad. My mother would tell me that for all of my devilishness, I would not melt away in the rain." 

"She'd be right on that one." He looked at my empty bowl and pondered whether or not to have another for himself, telling me that he'd come straight here from the theatre before the soaking downpour had begun. 

"I want to write my mother, Nicolas, and tell her about us." The look on his face and arch of his brows made me laugh. "No, now as liberated as Gabrielle may be in her mind, I'm not going to divulge the details, don't worry. I would just like her to know that in some way, I… no, we have found happiness. It's all she's ever really wanted for me and I know she'd want it for you as well. She always favoured you." 

"She might not favour me doing such things to her child, Lestat." 

"Please, I'm hardly a child and aside from that, there is a part of her that might actually wish it were her here instead of me. In fact, I'd argue that to be quite true. Maybe in some way, what we have and what we are becoming to one another can bring her some vicarious pleasure, and I see nothing wrong with it." 

"Calm yourself. Go on and write the Marquis and tell her that we're mad for one another. You know her better than I." He looked distracted if not upset before he rose to move over toward the bar and sweet talk little Sophia into making up two big cups of the soup for us to take upstairs, along with some leftover roast if she would be so gracious, and of course she surrendered to his charms and the way he would clutch his chest and lament on our impoverished state as performers. I watched them as I might a play, and the thought came once again that I was destined to be exactly where I was, and grateful for whatever fate had landed me here. Through all of my experiences, from the comedy troupe, to the monks I missed dearly, to the wicked memory of scarlet snow, I was here at last where I belonged. 

With a more than generous cache held in his arms, Nicolas came my way and persuaded me to help him carry the loot upstairs. I scolded him for his seduction but couldn't argue that he'd done well. We fell into our place with laughter, and put the things where they would best keep. I thought again about Gabrielle and what I might say to her in a letter. The next morning I would go to the scribe and make certain, even with vague words, that she knew I'd found most everything she could have wished, and that I believed the rest of it to be not far off. 

Without much thought I walked behind him as he leaned over the little cupboard beneath. My hand moved over his back and he turned to me with the expression I'd longed to see all day. His muscular grace was soon pressed close and his lips were a sweet enticement as they found my own. Together in an almost dance-like fashion we moved there in the stillness of our smoke-scented room until his fingers began to loosen my shirt buttons and cue me that I must, with enthusiastic obligation, do the same for him. The rapid acceleration of such desire took my breath away and I assumed his as well, for neither of us volunteered comment or conversation. What we sought could not be satisfied with words. 

Within moments we were as we'd been the night before, solid and yearning for one another with our clothing cast aside like rags. The hesitation I felt then seemed to belong to someone else, for now I wanted him more than ever in any way he might have chosen. The ambience was different altogether as he pressed me back toward the far wall behind our sleep pallet. The way his hair hung down into his face to frame his eyes reminded me of some wild horse that burned with passion for it's freedom. His fingers reached below to encircle the rigid flesh of my arousal and with the press of boards to my back, I groaned aloud. He laughed low in his throat as he stroked and pressed tighter to kiss and bite at my chest. My God, how he inflamed every fiber of my being. I wanted him in mind, body and soul, instantaneously, and I begged him for more. He moved his lips lower as he sank down in front of me and bit at the contours of my torso with an appetite no food could suppress. The natural thing for my fingers was to get lost in the mad tousle of his hair, and I pulled him closer with each nip he placed on my skin. Damn him, how this felt as it raged and surged within me, and yet higher and indefinable! His mouth found that hardness and moved upon it with the same skillfulness he'd demonstrated the previous night. My legs shook as I stood, and in natural response, my hips moved forward in shameless need as his hands moved… one to grip my thigh and the other to slowly invade beneath his concentration and caress the sack that contained reward for his efforts. I knew he wanted my release and the image of how he'd received it the night before shimmered through my mind. Such a payment was ready now to be given in willful thrusts, with the sound of my breath ragged and loud as I announced the moment of imminent delivery. My gaze held fast down the length of my chest as he moved in instead of away, and when I felt his lips pull at the patch of wiry hair I couldn't hold back. The knowledge that he held all of me and that he wanted every last bit was too much to withstand and I granted that desire with a release that pushed my body hard against the wall and left my hands to clutch at his shoulders and back as I grunted and groaned, incapable of anything else. When the throbbing contractions slowed at last, I sank breathless against the rough wall with one hand on his shoulder. He in turn, offered that low, licentious laugh as he rose to press me tighter and capture my face in his hands. 

"Damn you, Lestat… how very good you taste." That laughter again, fell deliberate against my cheek while his unspent and obvious need pressed to my leg. I wanted him immense and demanding inside of me, but I was to find out that night that this was not wholly his preference.


	9. Abundance

While I pleaded with my eyes more than with words, he sat back on his heels to look me over. I didn't quite know what was expected or what he might do next. This was Nicolas I was dealing with after all and he had that way about him at times even more than I did. Should I lie back on the floor and encourage him? Should I go over to him where he sat and do to him what he so expertly did to me? Now that was a brilliant idea! I crawled close and began to caress him there, all the while being even more aroused by his lack of instruction. In fact, he offered no words as he watched me, and none more when my hand began to urge him on as if he were truly inside of me, which I still asked for between what kisses I laid to his thighs. To my surprise, he reached down and pushed me back from my intention and when I sat up, the lust in his eyes had diminished to the usual degree of seriousness that would seem to border on anger if one didn't know better. 

"What's the matter then, am I not doing it the right way?" My tone was sharper than it should have been, but it was born of the frustration I felt. I only wanted this and more, part of this whole new fascination he'd awoken within me. I wanted to touch and feel and taste, and felt truly that I might need nothing more to exist. 

"You were doing everything wonderfully, Cher." His hand passed over my face as he stood. "It's only that there are some details you might not understand about me, Lestat, and how could you when I haven't been kind enough to inform you?" 

I reached for the little woven blanket and brought it around myself with a scowl and a pout that lingered noticeably before I turned toward the fire and left him to his soliloquy. 

"I told you about Julian, so you know about him and that he was my teacher in these sorts of relations. It's funny, to think about all of the things he and I did together. What's certain is that we packed a year's worth of such lessons into the mere months we shared. I've merely shared a few with you." He walked over to pour himself a drink and his words were paused until I heard him scoot out the chair and sit down with a sigh. "You look like a little boy when you sulk, Lestat, and surely you're not going to sulk just because I would rather do one thing over another when it comes to the physical between us. Would you like it more if we were to not continue at all?" 

"You know the answer to that. Why do you ask such things?" My retort came in resignation as I turned around to face him. 

"Julian taught me to enjoy the sensations this lovemaking can bring. With him, Lestat, I was not usually the one … ah, how might I say it? I was not usually the one in command, yes, that might be proper enough. More often than not, it was he, by hand and mouth and anything in between, who took me to the limits of my own ecstasies. Now you become sullen when what I want in fact, is for you, my long-time friend and newborn lover to take me there once more with your long beautiful fingers and anything else you might employ." I smirked at the image and moved closer. 

"But that is what I was trying to do, Nicolas, and you pushed me away." 

"I don't want you to do that particular deed, Lestat. You can and have already given me such pleasure in so many other ways. When it comes to that, there is something about it that inspires primal lust within me only when it is I who performs the rite. I never much cared for it when it was done instead, to me, even by Julian. I want to be the giver in that regard, and what's more, now that you've seen how it is for me to be inside of you, I want you to take that place inside of me. In fact, I'd much prefer it, even though you should believe me when I say that to finally be inside of you was a bit of heaven on earth. I want to feel you. I want you to be, to exist inside of me. " 

"But you know I don't have any experience there, Nicolas!" Great laughter came on the heels of my objection as he dressed and denied me any further tutilege for the time being. I was disappointed but I too grabbed my clothes and let it pass in pursuit of what he truly intended to say. "Seriously!" I demanded as I slipped on my trousers. "You mean to tell me that you don't want to … to do what you did to me? Ever again?" 

"Oh Lestat, do calm yourself. I am not saying I'll never be the one to make love to you again, only that I'd prefer that you be the one… how to say, in charge of the position?" He once again laughed at the apparent disbelief on my face. "As for your claim of no experience, you can't quite say now that you don't know how the act is done, can you? Why would it be any different for you to perform instead of me? You, Lestat… the consummate performer! Are you doubting your abilities?" 

"Don't mock me! They are very different skills and you damn well know it." I scowled once again until he came beside me and lifted my chin with his thumb. 

"You know Lestat, that you'll have nothing at all to worry about. You always do brilliantly with anything you truly want, and despite the fact that you love the other things I do to you, I know once you are the one to make love to me, you will want it, over and over. I know you, Lestat." At that I laughed and pushed him away. He joined me in that and then placed an affectionate kiss on my head. 

"I have a surprise for you anyhow, you pouting fool. While we were at the theatre I talked with Pauline, and of course you know she adores us both, yes?" 

"I do." 

"I didn't tell her of our relationship, but she's not oblivious to the possibility. I happen to know that she owns a house out in Montmartre, and I'm trying to work out a week's lease for you and I so that we can further explore one another. After all, you have so much experience to gain!" I glared at him before breaking into a smile. He was really a character, he was. To think that he and I could have a week together uninterrupted was wonderful. To imagine what he might have to show me, well that was too arousing to think about now without want of a preview. I sat at the little table across from him and told him how appreciative I was of the whole idea. 

"But won't that give away, what… what we are now?" I worried. I didn't want to cause trouble for either one of us, simply for a little privacy. 

He went on to explain to me that although we could not and should never truly allude to the fact that the line had been crossed, there were those who might acknowledge the fact with taciturn approval or in some circles, not many, those who would outright applaud. He and I sighed in unison for those circles in which the artisans and poets would sit and sip absinthe well into the night. Someday it would be our turn to join them, and until then, we must preserve our respectability he said. 

"But would it be so bad if people found out or can't we at least steal a few embraces here and there?" I thought of the bath in the rear of the theatre and how I'd have loved to do more than embrace that wet body. 

"Lestat. Don't you have any sense of the history of such things in this time?" He shook his head sadly. "Julian and I were risking our very lives by spending as much time as we did together with the connections he had. It isn't as if we had any fame or grand wealth to protect us. Though he was wealthy by my standards it wouldn't have made any difference. Don't look at me like that now. Surely you know about any number of the men who have suffered absolute destruction or worse for even being suspected of the things we've done here in this place we share!" He was upset by the knowledge of such atrocities, and when I claimed ignorance he went on to tell me of the fact that several fairly well known persons, namely writers that we had frequently admired, had been accused of such things and in the not too distant past they had been put to death merely for the suspicion. When I inquired further about these atrocious claims, he grew rather silent but I poked and prodded him to tell me how and why anyone would do such things. I nearly fell out of the chair when he quietly told me about the widespread male prostitution that had developed right here in Paris, some fanatics estimated it to be as much as twenty-thousand "sodomites", and how a century before Benjamin Deschauffours had been burned at the stake for child abuse and murder but in all probability it was more likely because he was a pimp for men who sought sex with other men. I clutched my chest as I stared into the unlit shadows. Burned at the stake, just like witches. He added that more directly for such an act two workers, were burned at the stake after being caught having sex on a Paris street some thirty years ago. No one talked of it now, apparently seeing such activity more as a public nuisance instead of something that should be so horribly punished but that aside from the notorious such as Voltaire, the whole of such behaviors was wisely kept out of the public eye. I thought over what he had said. Of course in some way I'd known the vagaries of these more notorious cases from what little I'd overheard in gossip, I recalled my mother saying something about Le Duc d'Anjou, Henry III, which I brought up to Nicolas. 

"Yes, he was apparently keeping house with a dashing young man, and it wasn't the first nor the last he would have." 

"It was the same place you're thinking of taking me? You want to go and stay in this area? How very like you, my friend, to think the rules don't apply to you." 

"Now who would I have learned that from, Lestat?" He poked me in the arm and stood up to announce that he was going to go out for a walk since the rain had stopped some time ago. I reached behind my seat and brought up his violin case to hand it over, for I rightly figured he would want to play. Part of me wanted to go with him, and another part knew that as fascinated as we were with one another we needed our time apart. It was acceptable to me, for I wanted to venture out as well to see if I could find someone willing and able to pen a note to Gabrielle, even at the late hour. I supposed that with a few coins and some cleverly applied charisma, I could persuade some assistance. I stood up and leaned to kiss him on the cheek softly. The brief smile that lit his features would be enough to sustain me until he came home once again to sleep by my side.


	10. Momentum

I had been correct in my assumption that I could wrangle some assistance in drafting a letter home to Gabrielle. What I really wanted was to ride home and twirl her around in my arms as I told her all the details. Well, not all the details I thought, but most of them. I would not be able to go home for at least another two months. Our rehearsals were regular and I loved the busy, bustling excitement. I daresay I was addicted to it, for I could not leave. I was just beginning to receive invitations to audition at the more notable theatres, and felt proud that my reputation had spread so quickly. I was eager to perfect my skills if there was such a capacity and I often found myself in the theatre even on days when there was no need. For an instant I recalled the mysterious voice I'd heard a few nights before our last performance, but I dismissed it now as I had then, as a practical joke by any number of souls there who would find such a thing to be infinitely humorous. These thoughts came and went as did the aspiring beau monde before my eyes, and I casually noted who was with whom, and who was wearing, eating or drinking what with whom. There was small delight in such a pastime for me, for here I was in Paris, and the thought that I was finally here and able to indulge in such vicarious pleasures amazed me no less as each night passed. While I sat here, no one knew that only hours before I'd been engaged in scandalous activity with another man - and loved every second of it - made me laugh out loud. The gentleman who'd penned the letter to Gabrielle looked up and I waved it away as if I'd just thought of some passing humor. I made quick work of what had been a small supper and then downed my drink with a loud gulp before I rose to excuse myself. As I made my way to the door I was surprised by the number of times I was touched on the arm and stopped for conversations. The ladies were lovely in their low cut dresses, and the men equally attractive in all manner of dress. Before I left I stood near the wall for a moment to appraise the crowd in a more abstract manner. I found that I could view the men with a renewed appreciation and yet I wasn't physically aroused by the fact. It was somehow comforting, and it was the last thing that crossed my mind as I stepped out into the night to find that the rain once more had begun, and this time seemed determined to fall exclusively on my head in a torrent. With my head high I marched along the avenue, determined not to let my spirits become weighed down as they'd been before. It was easy to remind myself of all the things I had and all the things that waited ahead for my friend and I. There were obstacles and given what he'd told me, there would be challenges if he and I were to be involved. I couldn't think of not being involved with him now, and that struck me funny as I dodged the deepening puddles with a laugh. It was true we'd been close friends but I never could have dreamed that we'd be where we were at this point in time. I smiled at what Gabrielle's face might reveal as she read between the lines of what I'd told her in my letter. I couldn't wait for the day when Nicolas and I could ride home together and more fully tell her in person. She would understand, I knew she of all people would understand and accept it even if she would toss in obligatory warnings out of concern for her son and the other young man whom she'd always favored so well. It broke my heart to know that she was there in the barren, old castle that perpetuated her illness. I vowed that as soon as I could I would bring her to Paris over any objection or hand raised in protest. My father and brothers could be damned to the cold of the countryside, my mother needed me, and in truth, more than she'd ever want to hear, I needed her as well. 

By the time I reached our little room, I was soaked through and through. I trudged up the steps that were becoming icy and tried to grab on to the handrail only to find that it was slick as well. When I stepped up onto the landing, I was grateful not to have broken my neck, and even more grateful when I opened the door. Nicolas sat at the table and the fireplace roared in welcome as I sloshed into the room. With no intent toward provocation, I stripped out of my wet clothes with great difficulty right there and then before I took another step. Not a word did he say as he watched me, and finally threw the blanket in my direction. Gladly, I wrapped it around my waist and walked over to pick at the leftovers of the feast he'd evidently laid out and all but consumed. 

"You got your playing over with before this wretchedness set in, I take it?" I picked up my clothes and hung them out in various places to dry before plopping down onto the floor. He'd walked along Le Marais he said, to take advantage of the full moonlight while it lasted, and he'd gotten through the greater part of the Albinoni adagio before the first drops began to fall. The image of him in his long coat as he played there in front of the inevitable small gathered crowd was soft and comforting though the piece itself was beautiful in it's despair. I'd seen him bathed in moonlight more than once, and with my eyes half closed I dozed against the wall. The warmth of the fire lulled me and the somnolent memory of the devil silhouetted against the midnight sky with swam in my mind. His arrow was a long bow that struck again and again against his instrument, and beckoned me to dance into oblivion. 

"Lestat," A voice roused me gently, his voice I knew though for a moment it was incorporated into the dream and my eyes surely must have been startled as they opened. "Are you all right, my rain-soaked Prince?" He settled beside me and I leaned against him, unwilling to wake fully. His sleep shirt was soft and fresh, and gave me further reason to want peaceful surrender to sleep. I leaned the other way and made myself comfortable on our bed. I was more asleep than not when I felt him lie down and form himself behind my body. He didn't attempt any further conversation, but the press of his warm body was hard to ignore even through the fog of pending slumber. I don't know how long it was that we lay there though it seemed as if we'd slept a while before I felt his hand move against me under the blanket. Secretly, I smiled and moved against him without word. Let him believe that I was ignorant to his touch. He placed soft kisses against the nape of my neck where the curls were still damp. He wasn't so much trying to wake me, I thought. It was more as if he were soothing himself, for he would stop and lay quietly against me before he started once more. Eventually, there was little hope of disguising the fact that even if my brain wasn't awake, a certain region of my body was obvious and at the ready. Still, it was nice to lay still and pretend that I was lost to dreams. I let out the briefest of moans and pushed into his hand as it closed around me there. The sound must have encouraged him, for I felt the scrape of his teeth against the thickness of my shoulder while his breath came more heavily toward my ear. 

"Wake up, you devil. Wake up and make love to me." I smiled with my eyes still closed and said nothing as I inched back against him. "Mmmpleaselestat…" As a single word, this rolled off his tongue against my skin, and I felt I could resist no more. I turned toward him in one slow motion and pulled him tight to my chest. As my hands dug into his backside, I answered him only with my lips in a deep kiss that begged for the play of his tongue. This he gave not only willingly, but asked for it in return as if he were starved. I rolled on top of him with a teasing laugh as I broke away from his mouth. He wrapped his legs around me and leaned up to nip at my throat, cursing me. He'd been right about one thing: My body and mind were now working in instinctive unison as if I'd been prepared to do this all my life. What was it he'd said? Was I the consummate performer? I decided that as with each debut, I would know only by the reaction of my subjects after the show. Yet this was no act. This was Nicolas, and he lay beneath me now in gentle insistence that I continue. In alternated pleas and curses he demanded for me to put that hardness inside of him, and I really wanted to fulfill his wish, though I procrastinated a while longer to tease him into a fury with kisses that accompanied my hand upon him. At last he yelled out loud enough that I looked up in surprised mirth. Surely anyone who might have been within earshot would have heard his very telling instruction. He sat up halfway and motioned toward his overcoat, which I retrieved for him with a question on why he'd want it just then. 

"Two reasons, and quit staring at my body like that. You quite literally had a hand in making the obnoxious hardness, Lestat. The least you could do is not stare like it was some impossible beast about to pounce on you." 

I doubled over with laughter! "Nicolas, I hope it does pounce on me! Perhaps I should challenge you to a duel, hm?" I held myself out for his examination, my own beast just as impossibly aroused. I made motions with that hardness as if I were jousting in mid-air, and he howled with laughter and slapped me. 

"You're wicked beyond repair, Monsieur de Lioncourt, and I do love you for that!" He took a small tin from his coat pocket and I looked it with curiosity. "Listen to me. Remember when I told you that there were those you could in effect… inform about your preferences without really admitting to the fact?" 

"Yes, of course." 

"This evening, I went to a place where I knew there would be several men, writers mostly - and yes, some of the more famous writers. Such a look of envy you have on your face. Really, Lestat, I just had a drink with them. Before I left, the conversation turned toward the fact that, well to be precise, one of them was most taken with me and would very much have liked to have me accompany him for the evening. Yes, I figured you'd react that way, but… I'm here with you, aren't I?" 

"You are, yes, and I'm happy you chose me instead. Who was it that fancied you, Nicolas?" 

"That hardly matters now. I'll point him out someday. It wasn't Marquis Charles-Michel, don't look so fascinated. What matters is that I told he and his friend who had suggested the liaison that I was in fact newly involved with a young man, and in a dreadful hurry to get home and share every new experience with him. Well that brought a round of quiet, knowing laughter as you might expect, and despite the fact that the gentleman was disappointed, he encouraged me to have a marvelous night with you, my unnamed lover. He gave to me this little tin of salve, and told me that it was a specialty product that one in their circle had created expressly for adventure in 'that area'." 

I leaned over him as he laid his overcoat down behind his back. When he'd settled it onto the floor I pressed against him, delighted in the feeling of our only slightly diminished organs as they pressed together. "So he said that this was what we were to use? That's absurd and wonderful, Nicolas, that such you found such fraternity. You must tell me who this mystery artist was, or I'll die of curiosity - but I can wait for that. For now, tell me if they disclosed to you just how I was supposed to use this salve." I laughed and rubbed against him, rewarded with a soft moan as he held the tin above my back. It really did amuse me to think of some desperate soul, perhaps two, three, or even more, creating such a substance. Did they then experiment with it? I hoped that they had and then the rapid image that created was enough to bring me back to the task at hand. "Now, would I apply it to you, Nicolas?" I asked while I lifted slightly, turned to capture his hand and steal the little tin away. I studied it in the firelight and then opened it curiously. It had little odor, and to the touch it was thick and quite slick. Whoever had created it surely must have considered it a success, but it was time to put it through our own trial. Two fingers pulled some of it away from the lid of the tin, and a bit more from inside. I had no idea after all how much to use or if this was in fact the correct process. 

"You… You do, Lestat, yes." His voice seemed smaller somehow, different from its usual resonance. "He said, that it was for either lover to put on the other. You… please, put it onto me. I want to feel your fingers touching me there." 

The invitation was one I couldn't refuse, and I slid down between his legs as they parted wider in preparation. I studied that part of his body and noted the whole of it, somehow I registered the appearance as an indelible imprint of him, forever. I passed my fingers over the small, raised veins just beneath the smooth skin that was stretched to its fullness in desire. A shiny bead of his essence that rested on the tip of it fascinated me momentarily, and I brought it on one finger to my mouth, which left me wanting more and I vowed that one day I would have him in that way and discover what this substance could be in full. I craved it, and that fueled my desire to invade him if only because I knew that it would lead to a cumulative flood, and again it was the fleeting image of this that drove me onward. As I ventured my mouth lower once again to stir against the place that held such warm, sweet goodness, he moaned loudly and pulled my hair, which nearly pushed the soft globes into my mouth. I caressed them with my mouth and found myself delightfully lost in the intoxicating smell that lingered there, it was Nicolas, full, strong, male and lustful, and I wanted to drink it in until I drown. At last, my fingers separated the place beneath, and found their way inward. They reached the tight barrier, and upon it pressed the by now warmth-softened salve our salacious friends had supplied. Nicolas was by far, louder in his reception than I had been and as I circled around him there he let out a rather incoherent stream of broken French vulgarities that only encouraged me to move my fingers more slowly, first in one way of the clock, then the other. As he was lost to the feeling, I was emboldened to move up to where I could put my mouth upon him. The thickness slipped in without hesitance, and again I could taste the sweetness. When he paused, I knew he was aware of my actions and it was then I pushed my fingers inside. Oh how good it was when he thrust upward and grabbed my hair in surrendered surprise. Instinctively, just as he'd said, I knew the motions and reactions - or so I thought. Within seconds, he stopped me. He sat up as much as he could and pushed me away. 

"Lestat, no…" There was a determination in his voice that I recognized as quite serious. "Please, my love, please… continue, but not there." Regrettably I gave up the attempt to capture him in my mouth. Someday, I thought. Until that time came, I was all too willing to give and take everything else with him, and for the time being it was enough to work that place I desired to occupy. This I did until he was a writhing, moaning mess… until his dark eyes flickered with mad desire and he crashed against me to meet every kiss, and to return every clash of skin and teeth that led to my a point where each of us could wait no longer. "Lestat…" He hissed against me as I withdrew from his amply prepared invitation, and I looked down into his eyes. 

"How do you want me, Nicolas? I want you to tell me how you'll receive me. No, I'm not speaking from doubt now, not after all of this, but I want to make you feel it my lover. I want you to take every single inch of me. Teach me how to do that for you." I laid those last words against the heat of his neck and he fairly cried out that he wanted all of me, every inch, and then he chose to show rather than tell me how he intended to do that. He got to his hands and knees as I'd done for him on our first night, and I came up behind him, eager and strong. While he turned to watch, I rubbed against his leg and then up over him, into the still thick coating that would ease my passage. I hesitated only long enough to absorb the visual impact of the whole picture, of my own hardness as it pressed against him there, hard and swollen red with need. 

"Now… Nicki…" I grabbed his flesh into my hand and pulled it, kneading his backside as I spoke more in question than confirmation, though by now there was no chance I'd have turned back.. 

"Now, Lestat, now… please!" 

I slipped into him fluidly, and each of us let out a long, deep groan that hung in the air. For a moment I held there to realize the sensation fully, and to allow him to feel it in completion, even pushing forward to rub my hips against him so that he might know I was fully inside. He grunted and pushed back, while he urged me for more. How easy it was to withdraw and continue once again in a slow, piston like repetition. With each thrust I lifted my hips upward to hear him exclaim how good it felt, how he needed me so much. It was not to satisfy my ego that I gave him more and more. I leaned over his back and alternately kissed and bit at the sweat of his skin while I slowed inside of him. Beneath, I let my hand move upon him and become coated with the liquid I'd barely sampled earlier. I massaged those vessels that held more, urging the content to be spectacular. I wanted him never to forget this, for I knew as I looked down and gave him inch by slow inch, that I never would let it leave my memory. I watched him as the feeling overcame me, as each part of me pushed and pulled into and away from him as he whined and begged for more while he bent lower and opened for what he had requested. I withdrew with deliberate slowness, all the way out of his body and instead of giving into his desires, I rubbed myself against him, over top and in between his legs so that we were almost as one there. His hand found me and stroked vigorously, to perhaps urge me toward my climax but I found with some cruel amusement that I was no where near ready. I wanted to tease him further. I wanted to take him well beyond the realm of what he'd ever thought of in his wildest fantasies about me. 

"Nicolas, I want you so much. I want to take you there over and over!" This came before I leaned over and let my tongue trail over the lower half of his back, then downward, not stopping even when I reached the place I had just filled. The outright squeal it produced from him was enough to make me forget and residual taste of the lubricant we'd used. He moaned and affirmed in repeated whispers that what I was doing indeed felt so very intense, so good and that yes, he wanted me to take him to the point of no return. When I added the manipulation of my hand beneath, he again broke out in a loud groan as he writhed and thrust against the curl of my palm. It was immanent, his release, but I didn't want to stop. In concert, with my mouth and fingers I took him there and felt each pulse and spasm as he let loose. Only for a minute did he lay down in delicate exhaustion, rolled to his side to quietly repeat my name, so soft in fact that I thought it was only my imagination. He was up on his knees again to surprise me by turning around to face me, to grab me and pull me hard against him for a torrid kiss that left him with tears in his eyes when he pulled away, breathless. 

"Take me now Lestat. Spend yourself inside of me any way you choose. Take me and don't stop until you've filled me with all there is to be had, do you hear me?" In emphasis, he grabbed the still hard evidence that said I could do that very thing. 

"Get up again, like you were before. It goes so deep then, and you seemed to want more. Do you want more of it, Nicolas?" I teased his depleted member with my fingers and his lips with my tongue. 

"I told you, I want it all. Only you Lestat… I want you." It was oddly arousing that his voice contained tenderness and something near a desperate growl. He resumed the position after he had lingered for one gentle kiss. I got behind him and ran my hands from the nape of his neck downward, massaging my nails into the warmth of his skin. He was utterly beautiful to me, his maleness, the musculature like a sculpted piece come to life that begged now for me to give further vitality with the promise of my seed. I intended to do it, for I was at the point where I did not wish to wait any longer or more to say, I did want to wait, but I knew that this would not be the last time I would make love to him, so for tonight I wanted to give him what he so desperately demanded. 

I slipped into him effortlessly as I had before, and he closed around me tighter, determined to not let me go. He wanted completion this time, and I joined him in that sentiment. My hands moved around the front of his hips to lock on as I began the rhythm and lifted on leg to rest upon it, lending further leverage to the motion. We had moved enough in our sport so that he was close to the wall, and he reached out to brace himself with one hand. It was then that things became incredible. The fact that he could not be moved away by my thrusts, in addition to how I was positioned felt incredible. What remained beneath swung in opposite time with one another and clapped together deliciously. 

"Nicolas, soon…" I knew it would come, for I felt a sort of slow boil arising from that area each time it touched him. "You…" I wanted to say it all at once but my breath was ragged and I had such incredible sensations distracting my words. "You too, Nicolas… again… yes?" 

"Yes, Lestat, yes…" He answered and I felt his other hand inch back between my legs. I knew he fondled and stroked himself then, in time with what I gave. I wanted him to arrive in the moment with me, but I didn't know if that was possible. Perhaps if I told him, if I announced it he would be able. I felt his hand again and in response I gave him my full attention once more. With my eyes closed I gave into the feeling, letting it wholly fill my being from top to bottom and indeed like a blanket all around me, I became lost in Nicolas, I gave myself to him. There was nothing more I wanted than to spill everything I had deep inside him and live there forever. How long I continued I couldn't say, how long, how many times I called out his name, how many times he cried out in return… it was cyclic and fantastical until the moment the slow boil turned into an impending eruption. I clutched at him as I opened my eyes. 

"Nicolas, Oh God…. Nicolas!" There was nothing more I could get out before the first jolt ran through me, electric as it raced from my brain to my… my everything! It was all consuming. "Nicolas, it's coming… Now, yes… Now!" I didn't care by that point whether he joined me. It wasn't for selfishness but the feeling devoured me and I had no room for anything aside from the absolute need to fill him. Yet when I heard his voice rise with mine, and minutely noted the feel of his hand still there upon himself I knew he would. Together the sound we made surely woke the family that slept in the small rooms behind the restaurant, for it filled the tiny room and urged us to both give up all that we held. In what felt like burst after burst, I shot the heat of my pent up release deep into his body, I leaned over him and clung while the spasms wracked my own, and while he in turn shook from his second climax of the night. Silence descended over us, and I didn't move from where I lay against his back. Not until I heard him sob, and then I pulled away slowly, and lay down on the bedding to pull him over to my side. He lay against me and let out whatever begged for his tears. I said nothing but just held him close and ran my hands over his arms. The fire had died down and he was chilled. He cared nothing for that as he let out this emotion and finally looked up to me. 

"Lestat, my God, how … it was so good, so very good. It was everything I've ever wanted and with you, oh God, with you. I've loved no other as I've loved you and as I love you now. Forgive me these tears Lestat, this babbling, for it is more than I can withstand." 

"Sshh…" I quieted him and turned to my side. "You are my love as well, Cher Nicolas and I will make love to you like this anytime you ask - and maybe even when you haven't asked!" I tried to laugh and lighten his mood a little or at least let him know that I didn't in the least consider his tears to be foolish or misspent. I too felt the threat of them as I lay there, but more than anything, I was utterly and completely exhausted, spent with pleasure. To know that part of me was now within him, absorbed and forevermore to exist there made me feel a comfort I had never known in my entire life. This, I felt, was love in pure form, regardless of any social commentary or reason for existence. This was my destiny, my passion unfolded, and my happiness laid bare before it was once again secured in his arms. He had smiled and fallen into a light sleep as I stroked him and woke only slightly when I moved to first get his overcoat from where it lay in relative ruin and cast it aside, and then to get the blanket and cover him. I slipped in beside him then and he turned away so that I could nestle behind him as he'd done with me before he started tonight's affair. When I was settled, I kissed him tenderly and again told him that I loved him. There was nothing now I was more certain of in the world and tomorrow, ah tomorrow would wait, I said to myself. For now, this was all and enough as the light went out, and together we surrendered to dreams of one another.


	11. Confrontation

Since that first night, the morning light never looked the same. To wake next to him with the knowledge of what we now shared was a completion I'd never had. More often than not he would lie beside, awake but quiet until he felt me stir. Sometimes he hummed the tune that I knew never left his mind completely. Whatever current sonata or adagio he was perfecting, he would rehearse over and over in such a way, until he could play it in his sleep. I imagined he often did, and for a moment I would find myself full of the wish to join him even in his dreams. 

Our rehearsals continued throughout the week and though the upcoming production was larger than any we'd done before, there was looseness to the schedule, which fit our love of the Bohemian. Usually the music would be run through, then the lines, and then a brief bit of that combined. It was nothing too exhausting and to see the many people behind the scenes as they painted scenery, hung lights and decorated with whatever became available somehow made it seem more positively like a home. It seemed to me to always have a carnival like atmosphere, and there was no place I'd rather have been. One evening we had stayed late in order to work out a scene's particular nuances, and how he might best accentuate the dramatic point with an escalation of the instrument. We went over it, and eventually I couldn't help but to break into a little dance on the stage. I whirled around and cavorted like a half-drunk marionette before I collapsed at the edge of the stage, seated with my dangled over the orchestra pit. 

"You're charming, do you know that? Of course you do, who am I talking to?" He laughed as he packed his violin carefully away in its velvet-lined case. "You'll have half the balcony leaning down to embrace you, darling Lelio." 

I gasped in mock surprise and claimed ignorance to his meaning. "The balcony, my friend? Don't you think it will more be the ladies in the shadows of the footlights that will wish for my hand in theirs? After all, so dashing am I, however could they resist?" I fanned myself with one hand and rolled my eyes toward him in sugared drama. 

"The ladies of course, and I'd imagine most of them want much more than your hand! What you cannot see Monsieur, Lord Lestat, is that there are usually several well-dressed young men way up there…" He pointed with his bow before it went into the case, "Who lean over so far to see you that at times I've feared they would fall right onto my head. Romeos they are, reciting lines right along with you even if they can't understand a word." 

I had to laugh at that and made a mental note to watch for them when I next took the stage before a packed house. Each of us was certain that for this next production, it would indeed be a full crowd. We both knew that our names were being spread around to the more influential theatre crowds, and many of them took the time to come and see us to evaluate on their own. After a few of our plays I'd had the pleasure of meeting more than one person who could further my acting career later on down the path. To each, I was courteous, humorous and above all, graciously humble to their compliments even as I showered my own upon them in return. Nicolas would stand near the foyer and watch all of this to tell me later what a showman I'd become. To that I would say that I'd always been a showman, I was only honing the art for further gain. Occasionally, I would see what might have appeared as a flicker of resentment in his eyes though he was quick to deny such a thing if I asked. I could not help that I was sought out and attended. Each of my leading ladies suffered the same fate, and whether I thought it unfair that the musicians didn't receive the same accolades, I could not change how the scene took place. It was not a script I could rewrite. Often I said to myself, and someday vowed to tell him that he deserved better than playing for the theatre. Of course, he too had gained notice, and I was sure that soon he would move on and be swept into a grand symphony or even given his own command in a concert hall! How marvelous it would be to go and hear him play for a packed house and witness as he left them enthralled with his magic. As I stared at him from the edge of the stage, where he and were the only two souls, I felt a strange sense of sadness settle over me that I couldn't explain. When he looked up at me, I took as I always did, a mental photograph of the details that combined to make my Nicolas: The dark wave of his hair, unkempt but perfect, the fire in his eyes that held me like a magnet, the cut of his jacket, the lace cuffs that hung against the strength of his hands… if I were to stare long enough I knew tears would fill my eyes and again I did not know if it was due only to the newly intensified love our physical relationship had brought or if it were something beyond. 

"Whatever is the matter with you, Lestat?" He gathered up his things and offered me a hand as I jumped from the stage down to where he stood. "Really, you do have your moments when you seem to be in a totally different world." 

I shrugged it off and as we walked down the darkened aisle toward the door, I had the distinct feeling that we were no longer alone. I couldn't give voice to what it was that lingered, for it was more a feeling of being watched by someone or something that wasn't physically there with us. To this I said nothing, for I thought it better not to further appear lost to fantasy as in all likelihood it must have been. Instead, I grabbed his hand and asked whether he'd spoken to Pauline again about her home in the country. 

"In fact, I just asked her earlier today, and you'll be pleased I'm sure to know that she said I could have the house at the end of next week, from Tuesday evening until our performance on Saturday." That was over a week from where we stood, and I pondered it for a moment. 

"Wait, she said you could have the house? Did she specifically say that you couldn't have a guest?" My brows furrowed at the thought of such prohibition. 

"To the contrary Lestat, she suggested that I take Colette, if you can believe that! Oh, I don't think she was serious, no. She knows the reputation as well as I do. I'm telling you that girl seems determined to make her rounds through every man in the theatre. I know damn well she'd like to make a meal of you, and arguably desert as well!" I pushed his arm jokingly, though I agreed with his summation of the young lady who wasn't so ladylike at all. "But to answer you more precisely, no, she didn't say I couldn't have a guest, but I didn't hint that I'd like to have you there with me. As I've said you imp, discretion is the better option in our relationship. There's nothing to say that you cannot ride out to the house to contact me on some matter, right? That you may wind up staying is to me inconsequential though others might see it differently. I truly don't believe that anyone would know if you stayed every single night and you should know that if I have my way, that's just what you'll do." With that he turned to me and we paused there in the chill of the alley. His hand was warm and strong as he pulled me close, and I nestled my head against the span of his chest to feel as if I could have stayed there for hours. "We'll be together, don't worry. This may be a short reprieve from the eyes of the city, so we'll take furious advantage, won't we?" I laughed. Yes, furious, of course. Nothing better! "Until then, let me settle for a brief kiss here where no one can see such a criminal act." His laughter was short before he lifted my chin and claimed my mouth with slow skill. I could have sworn that each time he kissed me it was better than the last. If I didn't know better I'd have guessed him to be practicing that just as fervently as he did his music, but far from objecting, I returned his passion, almost hating to do so for the way it left me wanting more and more. 

Homeward we went, and that night I was asleep in short order. The rehearsal must have taken more energy than I'd thought. When I awoke in the middle of the night, Nicolas was nowhere to be seen. I dressed and went out into the cold streets below with the thought that he may have decided to play for a while to lull himself into sleep, yet he was not to be found. Frigid and a little dismayed, I went back upstairs and refueled the little fire. 

A low laugh came into my head, and I spun around to see who had made the sound, but I was of course the only one in the room. "Nicolas is that you? Come out now and don't play such tricks on my mind." There was nothing in reply for a moment, then the barest hint of that laugh once more. It was not Nicki's laughter, that much I could discern. It wasn't even laughter as I'd heard it before which made it all the more maddening. "Who then? Stop it at once!" I demanded out loud. Nothing. There was silence outward and inward. I pried open the little window and looked out onto the street, with what intent I didn't know. No one was about given the hour and the cold air seared my lungs. Harder than necessary I slammed down the sash and spun around once again. What was this then? Spirits come to haunt me perhaps? Why? I hadn't done a thing to invoke such malicious mind-play. For a long time I sat and in fact waited for another bout of whoever or whatever it was to repeat the laughter or say something more. I was sure by then that it was the same voice I'd heard in the theatre, the one I'd dismissed as a practical joker, but damn all logic, who the hell was it and how, no why and how could they be inside of my head? I grabbed up my overcoat and headed out into the streets. I didn't particularly want to find Nicolas, it was more that I sought to escape the discomforting thoughts that bred rapidly in my solitude. 

Though it was late, or by some standards early in the morning hours, there were establishments that remained open primarily for those who would partake of absinthe and whatever other ingestible substances that happened to be available. It was to such a place I wandered to warm myself and perhaps find some existential soul with whom to discuss this present trouble. I might get lucky and find someone who claimed the ability to speak with such spirits from beyond and they could demand an answer on my behalf. Was that what plagued me then, a spirit from the grave? Oh Lestat, listen to these dramas you create! I heard Gabrielle's voice admonishing me gently. It was true enough that I'd always had quite an active imagination. I should let it go, yes, that's what I should do. Still it hung upon me as I entered the salon and I wished I could remove it so easily as I did my jacket. There was quite a crowd for this hour, it seemed and I recognized a few of the more famous faces. Something inside me was surprised by the fact that instead of wanting to barge right up to them and make introductions, I reluctantly stayed back against the wall. When asked if I wanted a drink I nodded absently, focused more on what transpired not so far away from where I stood. A handsome young man sat to the right of an older gentleman that was noted as one of the more scandalous writers, and by the look of things, there was an abundance of risquי humor being passed back and forth. I pursed my lips in appraisal of the scene and sat down at the table to tend the chartreuse liquid that had been delivered. In slow deliberation I drank the bitter infusion and asked for another. It was more than I could afford, but what the hell, I had no need for money really, and why not allow the absinthe to have its way with me? Maybe I could make sense of the scene that drew my eyes like a play where my role had been forgotten. Nicolas sat in between Monsieur Guy-Maupin and one of his followers, with his violin case open upon the table. He was oblivious to the fact that I sat across the room in observation. In fact, he seemed quite oblivious to many things in general. I presumed he'd been here for a while, played for them and been rewarded with praise and libations, for he was most definitely intoxicated. While it was at once humorous to see him in such a state, I wasn't foolish enough to miss the fact that they would like to reward him with more than topical compliments. He was reclined against the elder man's jacket, laughter pouring from his mouth dark and rich while the elder's hand stroked his lapels. My eyes stung from the smoke of the room and the resentment that was torched by the wickedness of the alcohol. I toyed with the sickly green swirls that moved hypnotically in the glass and then downed the last of it in one gulp. That was the third, and definitely the last for me, for if I had another I might wind up sleeping right where I sat, and damned if I didn't have better things in mind. 

Unsteadily I rose and paused to gather my thoughts. Ah, but what use was such an effort when they were scattered and still here and there irritated with whoever was projecting their laughter into my head. It was all so funny, wasn't it? Yes, hilarious. We'll see about that. I walked slowly over to where Nicolas sat and laughed out loud as the crowd seemed to magically part in front of me. When I leaned down on the table, my head was pounding wonderfully and my eyes felt as if they were on fire. It took a few moments before he looked up from the whispers of his bawdy joke to find me there and the expression was one of being glad to see me, though he was naturally surprised. Monsieur Guy-Maupin sat up, perhaps older and wiser to the condition of my stance. Did I look like a jealous lover? I hoped to hell that I did. 

"Now, why don't you tell them the one where the violinist seduces his best friend and performs wonderfully lewd moves on his person for hours on end, hm Nicolas?" I laughed, and even more did I laugh when he sat up to look first at me, then the others first in puzzlement then in irritation. "Oh, and really, don't forget to tell them how you love to…" 

"Lestat! That is enough! Damn you!" He slammed his fist down on the table, which sent several glasses wobbling onto the floor. I thought it insanely humorous and went into a fit of laughter. "Excuse me, gentlemen. My friend here is obviously worse off than I, and I should forgive his outrageous behaviour and get him home before he can inflict more insult to anyone else." They laughed. I laughed. Oh we all had such marvelous wit, I thought. When I spun away from the table I wobbled, hateful at the fact that the damnable drink had poisoned my faculties so suddenly. "That's right Nicolas, you take me home. Take me home and do all those things you like to do, won't you please?" A gale of laughter blew from my mouth, and I was doubled over as I staggered toward the door. To hell with them all, I thought. I was insane and could always go home and talk to the voices in my head, right? I half danced out the door and winced at the jolt of cold air that seemed to push me down. I might well have fallen into the street but unseen arms were around me to drag me the rest of the way out into the street, and push me up against the bricks. 

"Damn you all to hell Lestat! What in God's name are you doing? Don't you know what you've done tonight? I don't care who these men are or what they might do of their own volition but damn you, damn you for being such an…. an… irreprehensible ass!" I howled with laughter. An irreprehensible ass? Oh I was, beyond repair, and God himself couldn't save me. He slapped me hard across the face and spat at the ground where I stood. Risking that I'd not collapse, he backed away and began to pace. "What you just did? There is absolutely no excusing it, Lestat. No, no… you don't look at me so piteously; don't expect me to laugh it off. There is no rationale on earth for what you did in there!" I thought, as I stood there in the cold with my vision green-clouded, that there was some sort of mist that rose from him. It was surely the heat of his anger and I found it incredibly arousing. Oh, it was far from the time to announce that fact, so I said nothing. He was right, so how could I argue? He approached me and grabbed my shoulders to shake me violently before he shoved me back again. 

"I cannot believe that you have behaved this way, Lestat. Thank God that it was among such men who… who can forgive and overlook such atrocity!" The mist swirled when he moved and I was entranced. "What on earth were you thinking? Can I not move without your greatness and presence? Damn you to hell again. I'll do just as I please." I sighed at this, though it seemed that was all I was able to do. My senses felt paralyzed and I slumped against the wall. "Come on, don't freeze here in the street. I should leave you. I damned well should leave you, but you'd likely tell anyone come to your aide what I like and don't like, wouldn't you?" 

I was in serious trouble. I'd never seen him so angry before and when he lent me his arm, it was with no sensitivity. He fairly pulled me along as he huffed and stomped back toward our room. When we'd gotten inside, he pushed me toward the chair and turned only for a minute to look as I unsteadily missed the seat and landed on the floor. "Never, Lestat, have I been so insulted as I was moments ago. How dare you come into such a place and say such things! Were you looking for me specifically or…" 

"Nicolas no, I only wanted to…" 

"Wanted what, exactly? To ruin me? To keep me away from anyone who might truly appreciate… Don't you think it is enough difficulty to find my own light Lestat? Must you have that too?" 

"Nicki, wait… please don't be…" It was too late. He walked out the door and let it slam behind. I lay back against the floor and noticed that my head had begun to throb in a new and unwelcome way. Why on earth were such wicked potions as absinthe ever created, I wondered. I would have shrugged if I'd been able, but I lay sprawled and still, and that was my last thought before blackness settled in atop the fading remains of all I'd wanted to say.


	12. Reconciliation

When I awoke the next day, I had no idea what time it was or if I'd awoken at all. Judging by the slant of the sun through our window, it may have been past noonday, and I groaned as I sat up with the thought that my tongue felt too big for my mouth. My jaw ached, and when I rubbed it, I was reminded of the reason. Nicolas. He'd hit me there hard enough to cause such discomfort. Oh God,where was he? I stood up far to fast and nearly blacked out before I steadied myself against the table. What had I done? Nicolas please, let me find you downstairs eating with Sophia, I prayed silently. My head throbbed and I had to relieve myself in the worst way. It seemed as if it even ached to tend to these physical tasks and if I could have done so, I'd have kicked myself for indulging, no escaping or using the damnable drink as I had last night. Horrid stuff it was, and I resolved not to make the same mistake again. Where was Nicolas now? What… what had he said last night? He left, yes, I remembered that he had, complete with the door slammed as I watched his departure. I looked at the door that seemed defiant in its inanimate form, as if to say to me well what did I expect? He must be downstairs by now. Surely he found somewhere to stay the night before or had he come back? I may not even have known! What if … I couldn't imagine that he'd gone back and found companionship for the night among any of the willing men I'd seen him with before. No, I could not think that, for it made me at once fearful and enraged. I flew down the steps, aware of my disheveled appearance, and tried my best to ignore the nagging pain in my head. "Sophia?" I yelled loudly through the back door and in quick time she appeared to hush my noise. "Have you seen Nicolas? Tell me he's here, please!" 

"Monsieur Lestat, no, he was here this morning, very early before papa was even up. He looked nearly as bad off as you. Is something wrong? Do you need help?" I realized I must have looked as if I'd been in some accident, and in fact I had. It was not one any medicinal tending would heal, nor would any other assistance she might lend. No, this was an accident that I alone must rectify as soon as I possibly could. I thanked her and went on my way. I searched the place where I'd found him the night before, and he was not there. In fact the place was nearly deserted and I left quickly for the suspicious eyes that lit upon me. Nicolas, oh Nicolas, my mind cried. I'm sorry… please… I reviewed what had happened as I sat in the cold sunlight near where I dictated the letters to Gabrielle. All I could remember is finding him with the little crowd of men, and what had I felt? What good did it do to label it now? Resentment? Jealousy? Oh certainly there was jealousy to see them fawning all over his handsome form as he leaned into their arms. Quite so, jealousy! What was wrong with the picture? Where were my arms around him then? Absent and unwanted, that's what I though to myself then I said, Lestat, you're an idiot. Nicolas wants you and you know it. Such inner dialogue ran through my aching head until I looked up to see one of the young men that had been with Nicolas. He introduced himself as Thomas someone, as if I cared for his polite ways. 

"You made quite a spectacle of yourself Monsieur. It's no wonder that your friend made his way back to us so soon. I have to say we all had a wonderful night." 

A shudder of rage ran through me, and to my surprise, I warned him away with measured words, letting him have at least the chance of escape without further instigation before I attacked him. I was injured. I was hurt in a nameless fashion to think that Nicolas had gone back to them and by all indications spent the night involved in far more than conversation, with far more than one man. I shook my head and he walked off to leave the further insult of laughter in his wake. It couldn't be true, what he said. I refused to believe it and aloud I denounced his claim, shoving it aside like rubbish. There was still a part of me, some nagging place that feared it to be true. What if he'd spent the night with them, and enjoyed his time away from me practicing his carnal talents on other men? No! He wouldn't! No, no, no… I would not believe it to be true. I set off toward the park with the thought that he might be there lost in his thoughts while he played, but the only young lovers there were not my own, and I went from place to place, and even once again back toward the salon to look for him with no success. When I was at last certain that he must have gone home, I headed in that direction. I found myself seated in the restaurant, with the lovely Sophia by my side, interested to console my worried mind and perhaps more, if she could. I had checked once again, but Nicolas wasn't home, and he hadn't been there to see her yet. Of course I didn't tell her what I'd said to him, or why it hurt me so that he hadn't come home, but what more did she need to know than my friend and I had fought and I was saddened by the fact? She teased me about my tangle with absinthe, and proclaimed it to be the devil's drink. I had to agree, though when I thought of it, I had to admit to myself that in part, I longed to be there in that salon with the writers and artists, drinking myself into oblivion. I just wanted it with Nicolas at my side. It didn't seem like so much to desire. I abandoned the rest of my meal and the pleasure of Sophia's company and headed out into the dark streets. There was no place I wanted to be, but if I went to the theatre at least I would be able to work on my lines without interference and perhaps forget my misery for a while. The door from the side of the building opened into the backstage area, and as I entered, I stood there for a moment to absorb the utter silence and the scents that could only be found amid paint and dust and vacant chairs. I made my way back to the dressing room and got the most necessary props in order to work through a few particular gestures in some conversational lines, and then I went onto the stage that was lit only by the few lamps that I fired along the way. I launched into my dialogue and pantomimed the gestures as if my leading lady were there to react. Though I stumbled in a few places in frustration, I felt as if they would definitely come together before the performance. I was after all, in love with the role of Lelio. It seemed somehow perfect for me and I laughed aloud to think that perhaps I was some present incarnation of the young romantic. My laughter echoed back to me from the empty seats, which took me by surprise. 

But it wasn't my laughter at all. The tone was different, I realized, and it lingered longer than it would have as an echo. "Nicolas?" With my hand over my eyes I looked out in vain to see where he was. Then I moved off the stage and down among the seats. "Nicolas, where are you, come on. Talk to me." 

"Not your young lover, wolf killer. Oh, not your lover at all." A deep voice came that resonate with an intent I couldn't place. I spun around and nearly fell over the seats behind me, but I could see no one. 

"Who are you? You're this same one who has been here before, aren't you? I demand to see you, show yourself you coward." 

"In good time, Lelio. Wolf killer. So brave." The laughter sounded again, malicious and provocative. "You'll get your chance to see me and more in short time, beautiful boy. Your lover is quite nearby. You'd better prepare to make amends." 

"God damn you. Show yourself now!" I shouted loud enough to hurt my ears. "How do you know me? Coward in the shadows who can do nothing but laugh like a child: A fool who lurks in the darkness. You know nothing!" 

There was nothing more. I was the only one in the audience and I turned from side to side in search of a sign that whoever had spoken was still present. Who the hell was it, and why was he following me, what did he want? Why did he refer to me in such mysterious ways? Damn it to hell I hated to be teased and bedeviled in such a manner. I kicked one of the chairs and stormed off toward the dressing room, leaving only vile curses behind. I'd just put out the last lamp when I heard a motion back toward the chairs where I'd just been. 

"That's right. Come out you fool. I'll not stand for your following me around and telling me when you'll present yourself. Show yourself this instant!" 

"What the hell are you talking about, Lestat?" Nicolas stumbled out of the shadows and up toward where I stood at the side of the stage. He looked as if he'd just awoken, and he rubbed his eyes while he tried to make sense of my words. I was still too riled by the unseen presence to really grasp that what now was important was Nicolas, standing before me at last, when I'd sought him out all day. 

"Did you see anyone out there? Did you pass anyone?" I must have seemed desperate, and that was certainly one present emotion. He claimed not to have seen or spoken to anyone, and stated in an ill-tempered voice that he'd been sleeping in one of the back lofts most of the day and hadn't heard a thing until the shouts I'd let loose moments before. He'd been here all along? I shook my head with a little laugh since I should have known and checked he theatre in general from the outset, though I didn't even know about the bunks where he'd been sleeping. 

"What are you going on about anyway? Who's following you?" He asked. 

"It's not important. I'll tell you later." I stepped down toward him and carefully took his hands in mine. "Nicolas I…" 

"Don't, Lestat… It's done and over with." He started to pull back but I grabbed his hand and held him there. 

"Wait, please. I've looked for you all day. Hear me out and if you don't want to … if you don't want to have anything to do with me, then there is nothing I can do to stop you." He paused and then nodded. I took his hand and led him back to the dressing room where I set the props aside and then turned to look at him. He seemed very tired, and again that damnable suspicion reared inside of me as to what he might have done all night and with whom. "Nicolas, I was a complete and utter fool last night, and I'm sorry. There is not much more I can do than to tell you I have regretted my actions with every breath I've taken since waking without you this morning. I don't know… I went there last night really just to get warm, and I'd finished one drink when I saw you. That old man, how he wanted you and I knew it! He wanted you and his lecherous young friends did as well, so how could I help the anger and hurt? Oh, but I never should have said the things I did, and for that I… Oh Nicolas I can only ask your forgiveness. I was horrid, wasn't I? I can barely even remember what came from my mouth, or yours for that matter but it was terrible, terrible, and it never should have happened!" I paced as the regrets came out in one long breath, or so it seemed. When I'd finished he looked at me for several minutes without a word. 

"It was terrible and yes, you were horrid, Lestat. It's better that you can't recall all of what was said. I was never so embarrassed. Thank God that Monsieur Guy-Maupin is old enough to understand such things that happen between lovers, and yes he knows now of course that we are intimate friends you and I. I'm sure most everyone in that circle assumes the same based on what things you said last night." He stared at me with calm in his dark eyes. There was no accusatory tone, for we both knew I was guilty. "As for any of them wanting me, do you really think when I had you waiting for me so willingly, that I would slink off and entertain myself with some old crack like that? Well? Do you?" 

I pressed my lips together to hold back a laugh. It was the way he asked it that sparked my humor. It was as if he couldn't possibly believe that I had such thoughts, but I certainly did as evidenced by my display. He saw the laughter that threatened to burst forth and countered it with a lopsided smile. 

"Well, really Lestat… The man looks like he's one-hundred at least, and his little friends are far too effeminate for my tastes, particularly when a smooth, virile body such as yours waits for me elsewhere." 

"So you'd have come home to me? You didn't… After you left me there you didn't go back to them? One of them saw me earlier when I was looking for you and he made it sound like you spent the night with all of them, intimately." 

"Lestat! Do you really take me for some kind of common prostitute? They are acquaintances, and certainly some of them are men who could advance my music, but I'd never sleep with a dozen of them at once!" 

I couldn't help my smirk, "Two or three then?" 

"You're impossible." He leaned back in the chair with the barest hint of a smile and seemed more relaxed. I went to him and knelt close to his lap. 

"I'm so sorry Nicki. I'll never say those things … whatever I said again. I won't. It's insane of me to fear losing you to such a crowd, or to anyone. Say it's senseless of me to worry, my lover. Tell me we're solid, you and I." 

He brushed my hair away and leaned down to kiss my forehead. "So desperately in love you are, and it's precious you know. We are fine, Lestat. You just have to understand that there are times, there will be times when I need to get out and be with other people and experience something other than what I have with you. That is not because I tire of you, but…" He passed his eyes over my face like a slow caress. "There are times my beautiful friend when you seem like a fire to me, do you know? I cannot explain what I mean. Don't look so sad when I say these things. Here, come and sit with me." He moved over on the small sofa and I lay my head against his shoulder. It felt incredible just to touch him again, but I waited for him to continue. "Your energy, Lestat has always blinded me. I mean, who you are, from the first day I met you. From time to time I must slip away, perhaps so I can see myself once more." 

I didn't really grasp what he meant by such words, but for the time being I didn't care. I could ask for further explanations later. Now, he was here and I only wanted to hold him close and cast away all the ridiculous words I'd flung at him, and the equally impossible things I'd imagined him to be doing without me. I turned more toward him and as my eyes closed, I leaned in to breathe his scent and kiss his face. Again I whispered that I was sorry, and that I loved him. I did love him. I was filled with it like a warm, rolling wave, and failure to contain it brought gentle tears to my face as again and again my lips pressed to his face, and my hands urged him to turn my way and kiss me in return. The intensity of our desire flared as it had done each time before, instantaneous and fluent. His lips met mine and shortly it was he who had me in submission beneath his body to feel the force of his tongue as it met my own. My jacket came away roughly and he unfastened my trousers with haste. 

"Nicolas," I laughed as he came up for air, "Do you think we should do this here? We have to be discreet as you say." 

"To hell with discretion Lestat. After last night, it matters even less and damned if I don't want to show you here and now that I belong to you and none of those others." He came down upon me there with his mouth formed so perfect, and began to coax the rigid flesh with his hand as well. My hips bucked in time with his tempo, and I moaned loudly while in guilty pleasure I told him how to move, how it felt when he took it all in, and oh, the things that came from my mouth could have made a civil man blush. I didn't care at all. We were torrid for one another and when I thought I could no longer stand it, he pulled away only long enough to strip himself completely before my eyes. He looked like a young stallion the way his nostrils flared with lust and intent as he stared in my direction and demanded that I too get all my garments out of the way. I'd already taken off my shirt, and without a word I took off my boots and inched down everything below my waist to kick it aside like the insignificant and bothersome stuff that it was. 

"Look at yourself, Lestat. Look how proud that part of you appears to be, as it stands ready. My God, it's beautiful. You're absolutely the most perfect thing I've ever seen." He dropped to his knees in front of me and began all over again to work me there, with his hands cupped below to roll and manipulate in a way that felt oh so good. "Nicolas…" I knew that if he continued I would not be able to hold back for long, so with one hand on his shoulder I pushed him back to indicate as much. He laughed and stood up with a lick of his lips. While I recovered my breath, he brought out a small shiny object from his coat. 

"I got more last night from someone." He handed me a larger tin of the salve we used in our lovemaking. "Despite your behaviour, the gentleman who supplies this suspected that we might have a good deal of making up to do when at last I returned home to you. Making up or no, we're going to need it when we go to the country, I presume? Unless you don't want to make love at all when we're there?" He teased me so. 

"Damn well we're going to make love all the time we're there. I might not even let you up for food!" I grabbed him around his waist from behind and he leaned back against me so naturally. My hands moved down his chest until they found the thick hardness below where I pulled and stroked it into further engorgement. 

"Do it now then. Let us rehearse our secret time in the country. Show me what you're going to give me!" He moved to lie on the settee in a way that looked strangely uncomfortable but that admittedly afforded me incredible access. He was on his back with his head toward the end, and he moved until his backside was completely up over the rolled sidearm on my side. He was perfectly positioned to receive me as he pulled me in with his feet against my rear. I had to laugh but there was no denying how eager I was to be inside. A generous amount of the soft ointment I applied to that opening that fairly pulsed around my fingertip, and then selfishly I greased myself with pause to appreciate the visual of my hand as it worked and as I pressed closer to slide up and down there. Without another word I pushed, and was home. He gasped and clutched at the sides of the sofa, and I laughed as each thrust was delivered. He groaned and bit his lips. His shameless manhood lay stiff against his belly and jerked with each stab of my own into him. It was my beloved's turn to let loose a stream of obscenities and guide me with such words and I followed his directives with a few twists of my own. I spread his legs wide, holding his ankles in my hands. I pulled him almost over the rolled edge of the settee so that his bottom hung free to receive me deeper. I watched his eyes glaze and roll with lust, and fingers as they stroked that weeping hardness. I used my own hand to massage those soft sacks that held his liquid, and he loudly protested after a few minutes, saying he could stand it no more, that he didn't want to do it just yet. I could never in a thousand years describe the way he looked, his back arched to superbly display the sinuous form of his body. 

"You, Lestat… Oh, God… I have to… But no, you don't… not there, not inside me." I watched him and let my motions became slower. I twisted and ground myself deep inside him so that our bodies seemed inseparable there in the middle. He panted and cursed his approval, and was lost to the feeling as he brought himself to climax in a hard spasm that tightened around me and produced a thin, shimmering stream on his chest. What an incredible sight to behold though it marked the breaking point for me. I began to thrust harder and faster, and he knew it would come in a torrent as it had so many times. He moaned and begged for me to stop and to make it happen outside of him. I went with his direction as he told me what and where he wanted my sacrifice and almost as violently as he had, I quenched his lips with its warmth. He was beautifully disgraced by our passions, and with weak knees, I sank to the floor and leaned in to kiss him, eager for the mingled taste of our intimacy. Together we shared the licentious nectar, in long, slow kisses. We were at once hungry and completed in each other, and then slowly I moved up to lie beside him in what little space there was to be had on the settee. 

"I don't know if I could live without you now, Nicolas." I said in a quiet voice. He caressed my back and murmured his own reassurance. With our passions spent, the room seemed chilly without the heat of our coupling, and when I huddled closer and nearly pushed him off the other side he laughed and got up from the too narrow furniture. "Let's go up to the loft where I slept. It's full of straw and blankets. We'll be warm as infants up there." All I could do was take his hand and follow, but I didn't care in fact where we wound up for the night. What mattered was that we were once again on track and in love. To me, that obliterated any other need or concern. No voices or laughter haunted me, no jealousy or strife marred the perfection of this time. I only hoped it could last.


	13. Anticipation

When next we awoke it was to the sound of several voices beneath us and bodies milling about in the common tasks there were to be done in the theatre. The two of us looked to one another like schoolboys with some hysterical secret, and it was all we could do to not burst into a fit of laughter. There was really no way we could descend from the loft inconspicuously unless we waited out the crew, and there would be no way to know how long they planned to be around. Aside from that fact, we were both famished and there came a signal to our stomachs that someone had brought in warm, fresh pastries! So I went first and crawled down the ladder, surprising the set construction crew who laughed and welcomed me. They figured I'd been sleeping off a drunk, and I didn't dissuade them with any argument but when Nicolas came down shortly behind me, rubbing his eyes and looking quite tousled, the look on their faces stretched from question to confusion and again it was all I could do to hold in a laugh. Nicolas nonchalantly asked about the food, which in itself was funny but allowed for a diversion to the crew's thoughts as they directed us to the back room where the sweets waited for our appetites. Pauline, our matronly actress and lesser manager stood beside a table that was laden with such treats and steaming hot drinks. We hardly disguised our gluttony as we dug in, and without much thought to manners, stuffed the sweet rolls into our mouths. 

"Now Lestat, you keep that up and you'll need a bigger costume! And Nicolas, shame on you" She laughed. Her ample bosom jiggled in its hold when she leaned over and wiped crumbs from his face. "You two act like you haven't eaten in a week. Now listen… boys, really, I want to talk to you. Come with me." She led us over to a smaller room off to the back, which was conveniently located next to the bath. It reminded me that I could absolutely use a good scrubbing as I assumed could Nicolas. 

"I've been wanting to talk to the two of you." She said as she sat down and straightened her dress. "While I'm not sure anyone else here knows… yet…Lestat, are you paying attention to me?" I spun around from where I'd been investigating a castaway prop. "Now, I was saying, I don't know about anyone else but as for me, I'm not blind to what has developed between the two of you." Before either of us could stammer in protest she raised her hand and continued, "It's quite all right. Let me finish please. You see, my husband … while he was my husband that is, had such inclinations. It's rather why he's not my husband now, I suppose. So I'm not oblivious to the signs of such amorous attractions. Do I mind? Well I minded that he found another man preferable to my arms, but I loved him still and I wanted him to be happy. I know now that he is, even if he has to hide what he now has with his lover. So when I saw it between you two, my favorite boys, my beautiful Lelio and his friend the violinist non par, it somehow broke my heart for knowing that you two would have to keep it hidden as well. This is why I wanted to offer the country house to you Nicolas. I want you to go there and have a special bit of time when you can live freely, as if no one in the world cared of this love you share. If I can do that for you and help in that way, perhaps my own happiness will be raised. I just wanted you to know that I knew, so that at least there would be one less person from whom you felt it necessary to keep secrets." She again touched her dress, and smoothed away imaginary wrinkles. Nicolas and I looked at her for a long minute and to one another and then boldly I wrapped my arms around her wide shoulders and hugged her tight while I whispered my gratitude. Nicolas joined me and for a minute we had a tight bit of bonding before we all laughed and broke away. Pauline fussed and shooed us off as she chuckled. "Now Nicolas, you're plan is to go to the country in the next few days, yes?" He nodded and confirmed that in three days he would depart. I wanted suddenly to fiddle with his hair but I restrained myself and added my comments instead. 

"I cannot go that day. It must be the day after if I'm to do my last rehearsal with Priscilla before the show. We must do a run through at least, I hate the thought of going on without that at the least. Nicki can go the day before, and I can join him when I'm done." 

"Would it be appropriate then, if I were to give you a ride? I've already told a couple of the neighbors that I'm going to have my nephews do some repairs for me. Oh honestly don't give me that look. They're far enough away from the house. Really, I mean what do you boys plan? Will you display such passions right out on the front lawn?" She chided us with more laughter and then got up to leave, after reaffirming the details. I was to catch a ride with her after I'd gotten out of my costume and makeup, and off she would take me to Nicolas. I laughed out loud once she'd gone. I felt at once wonderful and somehow anxious to think that she knew of our love, and not only knew but appeared to bless it willingly. Oh I thought, if only my own mother would embrace us so well. I hadn't heard from her but I was sure she would understand, if perhaps not with so much mirth. Gabrielle was rarely mirthful. I gestured to Nicolas and he agreed that each of us was sorely in need of a bath. He opted to go first and I grabbed that stray prop from where it leaned against the wall and left him to it. As much as I might have wanted to stay and at the very least keep him company, I wanted to see where this might fit into my act, and after all, there were more pastries and I intended to snag a few and store them away to take home. 

When I later heard the strains of the violin from out front, down in the orchestral area, I knew I could steal away and take my own bath. I did so for the longest time until the water was quite chilled. I had always loved to soak, and even in this little stuck away place I considered it a bit of decadence. A bath to me has always seemed some small way to acknowledge your body, perhaps to appreciate it as you recline in the water and know that it has some purpose. Of course I couldn't think of the immediate purpose too long or I might well be sporting an obvious result beneath whatever clothes I put on afterward. God but I was in love with the man, really I was. I could barely even think of anything else. His face filled my thoughts when I wasn't in his arms, and his arms I could barely wait to be in now, at any moment. Truly I thought as I dried myself, that I'd waited all my life for such joy, and rightfully perhaps, the both of us deserved to be content with one another as we were. In short time I was done and adjusting my clothes once more as I thought over nothing in particular. Suddenly, flurry of curses broke out around me. The construction foreman was yelling loudly and pushed past me so gruffly that he nearly knocked me over. Behind him came Pauline and she was also quite upset though she was trying to calm him down. From what I gathered as I stood there, a whole section of scenery had not been done and he was demanding to know who was responsible. He shot me a look and I shrugged, uncaring. I wasn't the prop man and he'd damn well not mistake me for one! I made my way out of the back room toward the stage and left their shouting behind. I was in no mood for such animosity. I was a young lover, eager for more of life. Nicolas had just put his violin in the case when I plunked down on the edge of the stage in front of his chair. 

"What's all that about back there?" He asked. 

"I don't know, something to do with a set piece or some bit of incompetence. Let's get out of here, can we? It's beautiful outside from what I've seen. Let's go for a walk then, maybe to the park and you can play for a bit before it grows too cold to even want to do such things." He smiled and put on his coat, which made me wish I had my lovely fur-lined splendor, but it was at home. I opted not to wear it for fear of someone stealing it out from under me, and so all I had was my usual and by now somewhat tattered common coat. It would have to do, and really I didn't mind. I longed for the cold air suddenly, and together we left the theatre and the dingy tone of the disagreements it held. 

The cold hit us abruptly and each of us pulled our coat tight to hold in the warmth. Still it did feel like a welcome change. Our little theatre home was a shelter, and yet it could feel at times too closed up for my liking. I needed the wide open spaces and the fresh air. Again as we walked I reminded myself that I would very much like to go with Nicolas back to our village, and I broached the subject with him. 

"Why would we make a big deal about going back, Lestat? It isn't as if we're getting married you and I. Do you want to ride into the village with a banner trailed behind our horses to announce our intimate connection?" His tone was impatient but humored. 

"No, of course not" I smiled with a look of cool knowledge. "They don't make banners for such a thing anyhow. I've asked." 

He laughed outright. "Have you now, and I suppose you've also gone to the church and inquired about whether they'll perform a little ceremony for us exclusively?" 

"Now Nicolas my love, I'm bold but I'm not stupid." I paused my step to take his hand in mine. "If they would do such a thing, I hope you know I would be right there asking for it." 

"Of course you would. And no, you're not stupid in the least Lestat, you are as they say, crazy like the fox." I didn't quite know what that meant, but I figured it to be some parallel to my triumphs with the wolves so I didn't ask beyond that assumption. Instead I sat and listened to him play for the children in the park as they ran behind the trees in their game of hide and seek. Their mothers or nannies listened with interest to the dark haired violinist and whispered to one another of how invitingly handsome he was as he moved to the sound. He hadn't left his case out as he sometimes did for their coins, and I wasn't sure if I should set it that way but I made no move toward that effort. It wasn't right somehow. He was lost to a long, melancholy piece and he swayed with his eyes closed against the backdrop of barren trees, still dusted with new fallen snow. Every eye including mine, was captivated. 

At last he lowered his bow, and stood as he always did when he finished. He'd be perfectly still for a minute, and I always swore it was to allow his spirit reentrance into his body, for truly on his music it seemed to soar aloft. One could nearly see the transformations. There was the Nicolas who walked in everyday life, and the Nicolas who played as he'd just done. At times they were wholly different, and there were occasions when I'd watch him stand with his eyes closed, lost to his music, and I would nearly become as immersed as he, feeling anything from envy to a fearful apprehension though I never quite understood that latter emotion. As he came back to himself, I too roused when the little audience clapped for his efforts. I did not know how long they'd sat there before thinking to offer that minimal homage. Had they been lost in the spell right alongside of me? When he looked at me, all else but for that dizzy sense of love and lust departed, and my quiet expression could only half mask what moved beneath. 

We went on with our walk and turned toward home, stopping along the way to get what small items our coins and charm could gain. Perhaps it was our youth and health, or more likely our interest in other forms of fulfillment, but we never seemed to need much in the way of food. Still, we managed a few fresh items and I was noticeably thrilled when two of the shopkeepers recognized me from the stage and complimented my acting. Nicolas shook his head and rolled his eyes. I was sure he imagined me becoming some grinning egomaniac along the way, but of course I assured him with a laugh that my ego was in check. It always has been, then and since, hm? 

As it grew dark, he ventured to hold my hand as we walked on a deserted road, and I welcomed the intimate risk. I couldn't help but to wonder what was on his mind for he hadn't spoken much since we left the bakery. No matter, I said to myself. At times even silence is glorious. As the cold wind swirled around us, there in the dimming light of our dingy Parisian paradise, there seemed no need for words when everything appeared to be right in our lives. We had one another now, we were on our way to fame and riches, we had dared to do this and come out the winners. I wore a none to subtle smile that surely must have appeared quite proud. Damn it to hell, I was proud. Why shouldn't I be? My lover turned toward me briefly and in an instant I felt like whirling him in my arms right there and then, though I didn't dare. For a brief second, something of a dark cloud passed over his expression and his face went blank, save for the furrow of his dark brow. It was gone nearly as soon as it had appeared, and I was too caught in my own contentment to worry over such a thing. Within another few minutes we were making our way up the many stairs to our room, and once inside he seemed to be in a more solemn mood than usual. It did not stop him however from eventually settling in by my side and seeking my mouth with his own. Without word or invitation, without instruction or urgency, I made love to him that night and when our bodies fell together, spent and warm, I held him as his dark eyes closed and shed unquestioned tears.


	14. Acquaintence

The next morning, Nicolas was eager to get on his way. He'd been to the salon and asked one of the adoring older gentlemen if he could have use of a good horse, and of course they were more than happy to oblige. A strong, sable mare was tethered to a post downstairs. I could see from our dingy window that Sophia offered up apples or some such fruit, leftover from the kitchen to fuel his steed. Of course, as I stood and watched him pack what little he'd need, I had mixed emotions. Though it was only for a night, it seemed for a moment to be significant that he'd leave without me. Surely the house wasn't in need of any preparation we couldn't do together, I thought. There was the factor of appearances to consider, and as I reminded myself of that I sat down in a blade of sunlight with more of a sigh than I'd intended. 

"Honestly," He said, pushing his sleep shirt into the bag, "You look as though I'm going to be gone for years on end. Pauline is bringing you out tomorrow afternoon, isn't she? It will do you good to be without me for a night. You should go out, Lestat - but don't wind up with the absinthe or you'll sleep well past the time you're supposed to be at the theatre." 

"I learned my lesson there, believe me." And I had. Nicolas and I had been to various taverns since my public indecency in the salon, and though we'd both chosen to partake of the iridescent, green wickedness I certainly hadn't indulged to the same degree for fear of what may, of its own volition, come from my mouth. "I may go out, but then I may just go sightseeing. You're never really up for that and this is Paris after all. There are hundreds of places I long to explore." 

"Well don't fall into the rot at Les Innocents either. I won't be at all happy if you show up smelling like a corpse, or worse." He laughed and flashed his dark eyes at me. A ray of morning sun came through the pane and thrilled to touch his face as he leaned in to give me a soft, quick kiss. I reached up and let my arm linger around his neck before letting him go. Perhaps he was right, and it would be refreshing to get out on my own and spend time doing the things that I had put off, not regrettably, for the new preoccupation of what he and I had begun. 

I walked him downstairs and clapped the mare's hindquarters as he settled on the saddle. I couldn't very well give him the send off I'd like but we both knew that limitation, and we were content. It wasn't some tragic goodbye and we knew tomorrow would come soon enough. He turned and was on his way with a brief wave over his shoulder. I watched the bounce of his curls against the rough of his overcoat and secretly I smiled at the thought of how our fortunes seemed to be well on the way. 

The rest of that day, though it was very cold I did just what I told him I would do. I went out and walked all over the city. I paused here and there, sat and fed the birds half of the sandwich I'd purchased along the way, checked with my friend the letter-writer for word from Gabrielle, and finally came to walk along the street that led to the theatre. Though I knew my lines in and out, I thought I might see if my leading ladies were there and in need of any assistance. I didn't want them flubbing their lines mid-way through to make a bad light upon my performance. I was lost in the middle of that thought when I heard someone call my name in a rather frantic tone. One of the young extras, I thought her name might have been Julianne, rushed toward me. 

"Monsieur," she panted "Oh, we'd hoped you would come today! Mademoiselle Pauline, she has been asking us to find you for hours. We went to your home but you were not in, and she couldn't wait any longer." 

"What do you mean?" I said as I pushed the back door of the place open and stepped inside. It had begun to snow rather heavily and it was freezing. "She couldn't wait for what? Where is she then, I'll go and see what she wants of me." 

"Oh, Lestat… She was going outside, just where we were walking - she was on her way to the little market on the corner there where they sell the pastries? Someone had emptied water just a bit away from the door, out the back of one of the other shops and she slipped on the ice. She was in much pain Lestat, but for some reason she wanted to talk to you. Finally, the doctor came and insisted on taking her for examination. He believed she'd broken her hip. Poor love, she may not even be able to attend the performance. He said she could be laid up for weeks to come!" 

I took all of that in with appropriate surprise and concern, and when she had finished the news, I asked myself why on earth she'd want to speak to me of all people when she'd been in such agony. The girl whose name I remembered wasn't Julianne but Marguerite, went off to some other task obviously still upset over the whole affair. I sat down on a crate to think it over and it dawned on me. If she was injured this badly, there was no way she could take me to the country. When I realized that I went from feeling shocked over Pauline's misfortune, to angry for a brief instant, to panic. How the hell was I going to get to Nicolas? In a huff, I rose and began to pace as I often did when I didn't know the answers in my head. Before too long, I new what I must do. 

Within another two hours, I'd bathed and used my dressing room to make myself look as presentable as possible. I borrowed some of my costume here and there to dress up my breeches and give me a fancier flair and then I headed to the salon. In the back of my head I figured if Nicolas himself could see me now, he'd get a grand laugh out of my arrogant appearance, but then he wasn't here and if I didn't go begging for a horse, I wouldn't be there with him tomorrow. Ah, I thought to myself, the things one does in the name of love and lust. 

Shortly, I walked in and shook off the heavy coat of snow that had fallen upon my head. It took a moment to adjust to the dim light of the room that was broken here and there by glowing lights in amber and green. The atmosphere, from sight to sound to scent, instantly reminded me of the night I'd come in and made such a spectacle of myself. Tonight however, I was on a mission and damn the fact that beyond whatever Nicolas might have alluded to, or what impressions I'd made all on my own, the men I was hoping to approach didn't know me at all. I didn't even know with great certainty which of the small groups might routinely speak with him, but if I had to go from man to man with such an inquiry, then I damn well would. Monsieur Rencourt was in the far corner and at least I knew him, so that was as good a place to begin as any. 

"Oh, Monsieur de Lioncourt, my goodness how splendid you look tonight. I don't think I've seen you here before. Come, have a drink, yes?" He signaled the bar and put his arm around my shoulder. Henri was an acquaintance from the theatre. He was the supervisor to the set builders and one of the company's major financiers. Though he didn't come around often, he and I had spoken one afternoon when I thought a particular prop didn't suit the scene. At first I'd thought it was going to develop into an argument, for Henri had a reputation for being right all of the time or at least thinking he was right and then some. Once I acted out a few lines and explained to him why the lay of the land behind my words had to be different, he'd straightened up, called me a subtle genius, and abruptly ordered all the changes I'd foreseen. Since then we'd spoken a few times and he always asked me if everything was to my liking. Why shouldn't he? I wasn't foolish enough to believe that in part, my performances were bringing in a tidy sum as a return on his investment. So we were both happy, but tonight I needed his alliance. As I swilled back a strong shot, and then another, I asked him quietly if he'd been present when Monsieur de Lenfent had come in, and if he knew whether there were any men here who knew Nicolas, or spoke with him regularly. 

"Ah yes, I know of him. The violinist with the dark hair, yes?" I nodded in agreement as he ordered us another potent round despite my protests. "That one, yes, I've seen him here. You know in my opinion, he doesn't hide his persuasions very well at all. Most nights I see him with that one over there, do you see him? Yes, the tall thin gentlemen with the beak-like nose. Gavin St. Charles, that's his name." 

I looked at the man who stood on the other side of the bar in the middle of a small gathering of similar companions. His nose didn't look too much like a beak to me, but then Henri had his own vanity to uphold. To me in fact, he looked quite appealing. He wore his hair back in a tie, and his clothing appeared to be aristocratic, in deep crimson and black, with touches of silver. I understood why Nicolas would align himself with such a man, and since he seemed older I thought perhaps he was similar to what his lover, Julian had been in appearance. To my surprise, that thought didn't raise the least twinge of jealousy, but when I moved to get a closer look and felt the unsteady threat of wobbly legs, I suspected that the liquor might be dulling my senses just a bit. I turned to Henri and thanked him for the information and the spirits. He insisted that I finish the drink that had just been refilled, but instead I took it with me as I walked toward the little crowd. I hadn't the slightest idea what I planned to say, and as I rounded a corner my throat tightened a bit to see that several of the men were the same ones to witness my tirade, and also the young fop who'd approached me in the park the morning after with his intimations that Nicolas had been in their service all evening. It was he who met my eyes first and cleared his throat in announcement or irritation, I couldn't figure out which. I leaned a hand on the back of the leather booth that curved along the wall and held three or four of my lover's friends and hoped that I looked most dandy in my dressed up apparel. I stammered only a little, and then turned to Monsieur St. Charles in introduction. 

"I believe you know my friend, Nicolas of course." I added as I gave him my name. I was trying to sound far more casual than I felt, and it wasn't easy. Come on, Lestat, I said to myself, this is but one more stage, now play on you fool. "He is out of town this evening and insisted that I come and make proper introductions to you all. I eh, don't usually accompany him, since I have to rehearse my lines." 

"Yes, yes…" The elegant gentleman turned to me and gestured that I might sit on a high stool that was parked just outside of the booth. When I'd done that, he moved closer to me. "Your name is Lestat, is it not? Lestat. Yes. Nicolas speaks of you quite often when he's here." With that, a little laughter came from the others who watched the two of us in the scene that was playing out. I sized him up and then I noticed from the corner of my eye the man who'd had his arm around Nicolas the night I'd burst in and made such accusations. He lowered his head in a grin as he said something behind one hand to the man next to him. "Well then, Lestat, we've been introduced. I'd offer you a drink but I see you're already well equipped." He smiled and stood just to my left. The laughter had diminished and I felt something touch my hair. It was St. Charles, with one finger slowly winding onto a loose curl. I pulled away, startled, and then joined in the laughter that rose softly once more. I must be subtle and act as if I were a part of their game not only for my own gains but also for what they might and probably would report to Nicolas when he came once more. I didn't want to shame or embarrass him. I smiled to this tall man who studied my blonde tresses, and pointed downed the rest of my drink, finishing with a hearty laugh. That seemed somehow to set them at ease, though why my willingness to imbibe would be a requirement I couldn't know. What I did know was that soon enough I was sitting among them in the booth, laughing and listening to their news and gossip. Another drink had come, and I further used my acting skills to make it appear as if I sipped it regularly when in fact I only wet my lips in between actually drinking the stuff. It was far more potent than the wine I was as used to as water, so I was mindful even while appearing casual. I came to know their names, though I knew I wouldn't retain the information, and finally I got to assert my mission and purpose when one of them asked about the trip Nicolas was on to the country. It was awkward, for I did not know how much they knew about why he was there in the first place. That was quickly established when one of them said they had assumed I would have joined him there. I sat more upright and stammered again while I thought of what to say. 

"You and the violinist, you are lovers." The voice of the one who had been introduced as Monsieur Cuvier spoke. "It's certainly nothing to hide among this group. You wouldn't have had to tell us of course. Nicolas hasn't been a gossip about you - he hasn't even named you that I can recall, even though our Gavin obviously knows of you from some source but come on, the blonde curls, and those eyes of yours? You're unmistakably the one with whom he exercises the talents far and above what he may have for his violin." The other laughed softly. By now, the sips of that third drink were making themselves known in my head, and a flush came to my face. I actually think I lowered my eyes like a bashful schoolboy. I wasn't accustomed to others knowing, let alone uttering such things about the intimacies we may or may not share. 

"Oh really Monsieur, may I call you Lestat? Yes, really Lestat, there's nothing at all to be ashamed of in that area. I fear we're all lost to the pleasures of one another's company in one manner or another and now you've come to be a part of our debauched little group. Frankly, I'll let you in on a little secret. You're envied by many for your liaisons with Nicolas de Lenfent. He's quite startling that one. I know he's caught the eye of many who come to this place." Monsieur St. Charles, Gavin as he'd insisted, sidled in next to me as he revealed this information. I wasn't angry really, for I was sure he spoke the truth and well did I know how lucky I was that Nicolas spent his nights in my arms. He continued, and the more I looked at him, I decided that he had an aura of quiet power to him, and I made a point to learn more about who he was when we got back from our time away. Oh! Our time away! I almost forgot my mission! 

"Yes, I eh… I know that, yes. But you see, I've run into a bit of a problem when it comes to the plans I'd had in joining him. I was going to be given a ride to the house, but it turns out the old girl had a terrible fall and is rendered incapacitated." I made a note to go and see Pauline before I left, which I was determined to do even if I had to walk fifty miles to get there. "So since one of you was generous enough to lend Nicolas a horse for the time, I was hoping there might be an extra somewhere for me to borrow?" They looked at one another and chuckled before a man who'd sat rather silently spoke up and announced he was the one who'd lent my beloved his steed. When he sat up and into the light, I could tell it was the same rogue I'd seen fairly manhandling Nicolas when I'd been here before. Of course, it would figure. He was rather drunk and his speech slurred when he said that he'd have liked to give 'that boy', meaning Nicolas more of a ride than the horse. What's that? As if I wasn't even sitting there! Damn him to hell. Hold your tongue Lestat. Remember that you are in need, but did it have to be this louse? Did none of these other men have a horse? Gavin shot the man a look and furrowed his brows. 

"Forgive Daniel, Lestat. Liquor causes his mouth to be as loose as one of the many little ladies in this sinful city." I smiled, but the fact that he'd stung me with his words was obvious. "I have a horse you can use, my new friend and in fact if you'd like me to see you to the residence, I can do that as well." 

"Yes, you'll bloody well want to jump in on that affair, I'll reckon." The louse once again opened that mouth. I'd had just enough alcohol to feel the rush of heat to my face and the clench of my hands on the table. 

"Come on, Lestat. Why don't you and I take a walk? I think it's stopped snowing and I'll see you home. Nicolas would want that, I think." How odd that sounded to my ears, as if he were dead and gone and it was proper to speak of him in such reverent terms. I glared at the drunken buffoon across the table and to the others I said my goodbye as I stood, and to most of them I meant it when I said it had been nice to meet them. As for the other idiot, I could have strangled him as easily as looked at him and was damned glad to leave the space he polluted. 

The snow had indeed stopped, and the streets were covered with a thin, fluffy powder that rustled as we walked. The way home wasn't long, and shortly I answered his questions about my acting aspirations and how I'd met Nicolas. He apologized for the drunken man's words again which I thought rather upstanding of him, for the fool certainly didn't deserve such courtesy. He paused and said that at the risk of being too forward, he thought Nicolas and I to be a beautiful pair. Some men he said, got together just to release their urges but he thought my lover and I were truly special in the day and age. I thought so too, and I smiled at the compliment. We walked a little farther in silence, and as I turned to look him over once more it seemed that he was trying to find his voice, as if he had something to say but was unsure. I paused at the corner and asked him if something was on his mind. 

"I don't wish to offend you or worry you unduly, Lestat. I should not broach subjects if I'm unsure of them." His overcoat was dusted with snow and for a second I had an overwhelming urge to touch it, but then I always been prone to instant and easy fascinations. 

"What do you mean, Monsieur?" I said halfheartedly. Once he moved out of my immediate vision and the stare was broken, I asked him again. "You should tell me if there's something I should know. All my life I've been a curious soul for better or worse. Tell me, is there some speculation about Nicolas and I, some scandalous gossip? I wouldn't be at all surprised given my spectacle and the way you all seem to converse so casually on matters of an intimate nature." 

"No, no…" He laughed and laid his hand on mine for reassurance. "Though we all seem quite loose about such matters, I assure you we are discreet and keep it confined to our circle. We also have respect and admiration for those who have found relationships, and I don't believe any of our companions would degrade such a thing into tawdry gossip. What I meant to say, or to ask you is whether you're sure Monsieur de Lenfent is… ah, how to ask such a thing… whether he is in a good state, emotionally." 

I thought about the question for a moment and then ran a rather quick review of my lover through my mind. While my face surely reflected the doubt and puzzlement I felt, I asked him what motivated such an inquiry. "It's only that there have been occasions when I've seen such a shadow cross him, and I'm afraid I'm at a loss to explain it in a better manner. He can be jovial one moment, and then without insult or intoxicant, rapidly seem to descend into some other place." He watched my face as he told me these things and I shifted there in the cold while I tried to picture Nicolas as a separate person than my intimate violinist. It was odd somehow to think of him as his might appear in another's sight. He urged my arm and we continued toward our destination as he continued. "I tell you this because I have seen it most visibly and it concerns me. Your Nicolas is an almost incomparable talent though of course of that you're well aware. There is likely no cause for concern, but perhaps it is something you, in your closeness to him, let pass for the better things you share. Again, I feel that I've overstepped somewhat, and I hope I've not offended you my new friend." 

We were at the foot of the multitude of stairs that led to my humble dwelling. I wasn't offended and I told him he'd done no such harm. In fact, though I didn't comment, I knew of what he spoke for I'd seen it as well within my beloved's eyes at times. I smiled softly and again assured this man who seemed only to have as he'd said, a respect and concern, that I would consider his words and speak to Nicolas if it became warranted. The smile was returned and he nodded before he bid me goodnight. To my surprise, he leaned closer and kissed my cheek. The warmth of his lips lingered against my face for a moment, and I found it not the least unpleasant. I silently commented to myself that he might in fact like to be more than just my new friend, and that thought in the next instant led me to wonder whether his comments on Nicolas were made with such motivation. As quick as that thought came, it was gone for I knew the truth of what he'd spoken. I smiled once more as he pulled away and gave gentlemanly bow to my direction. We uttered our parting words, and he turned to walk away. I was halfway up the second set of steps before I remembered what had led me to even meet Gavin St. Charles in the first place. I spun around and only a sudden catch of my arm on the metal railing prevented me from landing hard on my backside in the snow and ice. 

"Monsieur St. Charles!" I yelled for him and the sound of my voice seemed oddly muffled by the weather. He hadn't gone too far to hear however, and he unlike myself, turned around in a most elegant sweep. 

"The horse then? Will you bring it early tomorrow morning?" I had righted myself on the steps and crossly kicked away the accumulation beneath my feet. 

"First thing of course, only for you. I should not want to hold up such affairs, Monsieur." He chuckled in good nature and turned around to continue on his way. "Guard yourself now, Lestat. It would be a shame to injure such an asset as you've got there!" His laughter then was loud off the alley walls, and I couldn't help but to join him. Asset indeed. 

"First thing then, 'round morning meal. I'll meet you downstairs." He nodded while he moved farther out of sight, and I carefully made my way up the rest of the damnable stairs to the warmth of the room that would surround me with the familiarity and feel of my lover, who before too long would be once more in my embrace.


	15. Reunion

Before the sun had even broken through the pale and misted sky, I had been up and out to the various eateries and markets, gathering things for our time together. Pauline hadn't mentioned whether the cottage was supplied or if she had I didn't recall. Most of what I obtained was either day past or given to me on my distinct promise for the finest seats I could rustle at the upcoming performance. Oh to be sure, they'd heard of the fine troupe of actors this season and no they hadn't seen a show, they said. I bowed graciously and introduced myself with barely suppressed haste. When once my hurried manner was mentioned, I explained that I was on my way to meet a friend, in fact so we could rehearse our lines and music. It wasn't so far from the truth and neither was the fact that I could score very good house seats for those I might choose. With dried meats, croissants and a few other assorted pack-size items slung in bags over my shoulders, I started homeward. 

I saw my new friend St. Charles standing in the doorway of the inn. His horse stood in the background, pawing the dirt and the steed he'd promised to deliver was foreground as I approached, a magnificent bay colored animal, tall and lean. I smiled as I met up with Gavin and took the reins from his hand. 

"He's wonderful!" I said. "Thank you so much. I don't know how else I might make it to the countryside. I suppose I could walk of course, but then that would take…" "Don't worry yourself over all of it, Lestat. I'm not going to miss one stallion for a few days time. I'm sure his purpose and destination are more important than anything he might passively find around my stables." He winked my way, knowing why I was eager and stammering and I couldn't help but to feel a gentle blush. I still was not used to the prospect of strangers, even friendly strangers, knowing what sort of things were shared between Nicolas and I. He started to talk to me about something else, but I'd barely caught two words when another voice approached from behind. 

"Monsieur? Monsieur de Lioncourt, I've a letter from your mother, Monsieur!" The urgency in his voice caught my attention and I whirled away from any interest in the horse or it's owner. I demanded to hear the words right away, to know whether it was some crisis or another, or God forbid, the ultimate in bad news. I looked back up to Gavin who had mounted for his departure. 

"You understand, forgive my rudeness of course." I asked of him. 

"Nothing to forgive. Just bring him 'round when you're back home. Oh, and do send the violinist our warm regards." 

I promised to relate such sentiments and then turned to the young man who'd been writing and reading my letters to and from Gabrielle since we'd arrived in Paris. I trusted him, and since he was younger even than I by some five years, I thought perhaps he wouldn't be able to detect the more intimate references and allusions held within. When I'd dictated to him about Nicolas and I, I thought my expressions clever enough to get by the casual eye and yet get through to my mother. As I reigned the horse to the post, I nagged him to get on with his reading and he stammered as he tore open the envelope. 

 

"My dear son, Your last letter brought warmth to this home, to my heart. All that matters is that you are happy, Lestat. It's what you need and what you could never find here. Nicolas is talented to be sure, and you both are destined for much more than you know - of this I am certain.   
I listened, and yet my thoughts were elsewhere. I remembered what she had told me not too long ago, about my being some male half of her self. I wondered at that for a passing moment in the context of my new situation with Nicolas and then paid attention once more to the boy as he spoke Gabrielle's words. Her health was improving she wrote, despite the coming hardness of winter and the ever-present dampness of our home there. She said my brothers had stocked up on firewood from the forest, which was somewhat reassuring but I hated that she was in the care of their cumbersome idiocy. The callousness of my father and the combined incompetence of my siblings surely might kill my mother faster than any disease in her body. I swore to myself all the time that with the first opportunity, I was by God bringing her to Paris to live with us in a decent, warm home where I, if no one else in my family would care for her the right way. 

I thanked the lad and gave him some spare change for his efforts. He smiled and ran off toward whatever poor village he might be from, leaving me to turn and fill the saddlebags with the food I'd gotten at dawn and tuck the letter safely away. The gentleness of a voice at my side and a hand to the small of my back announced Sophia's presence only a short time later. 

"You're leaving then?" She asked. I answered in affirmation and she said she'd hoped I'd changed my mind about departure. She hesitated for a long moment until I turned her way. With her dark eyes tilted upward she apologized for her brash display in the darkness of the inn when she'd kissed me. I found myself smiling not to patronize, but rather because the way she was acting now, so young and full of sweet promise made her seem like a trembling flower, or a confessor… yes, that was it, a confessor, pouring out her perceived sins while at once wishing for and denouncing the need for my arms around her. I gave them to her anyhow as I pulled her close and kissed her hair. My assurance that she'd done nothing inappropriate, that I still loved her like a little sister and would call her such, and that yes I would be returning were sufficient to calm her quiet tears of concern. 

"You could have come and asked Father or I for some supplies you know. I'd have given you… wait!" she ran back inside and I covered my eyes against the sun to see after her. In moments she approached with a large wrapped package and I could smell even before she reached my side that it contained a roast and vegetables. My stomach ached to taste this ambrosia, but I decided to wait and share it with my favorite supper partner. 

"Monsieur de Lenfent …" she started to say something about Nicolas as I got up into the saddle. Her eyes trailed off and she stopped as if thinking it better to let the words free and unspoken. 

"What is it, my darling sister?" I joked. With one hand I caressed her chin before taking up the reins and clucking my tongue softly to bring the horse to attention. "Nothing at all," she laughed. "It's just very good that you two get along so well as you do. Your time away will go well, Lestat. You and he will be prepared for the performance, and I cannot wait to see you up on the stage and hear his music. Do tell him that for me, won't you?" 

I gave another promise to deliver words of fondness to Nicolas and then pressed down on the buckled packs behind me to make sure they were secure, tagged my heels on the animal's side, and was off on my way to the serenity of the countryside. The directions that Pauline had provided were relatively straightforward, and my destination waited several miles outside the relative disarray of the city. The clean air was a welcome change as I made my way outward and met green fields. I thought about nothing in particular as I rode; My mother's words, her health, the way Gavin and his friends had chided me about this new lover of mine, and the interest he'd shown in Nicolas and what he'd seen as some darker side. That remembrance made me think further as I guided the horse down a narrow hillside trail. Had I witnessed this myself? I thought about the night of horrors when I'd drunkenly confronted him in the tavern and the anger he'd justifiably shown afterward. I thought about some of our discussions in the past, inevitably in my mind came the vision of the burnt place where the witches had stood, but I closed that door before it could open wider. No, I told myself that those times were all a part of the past though I recognized that they were also a part of what had helped to bring he and I to this very day. So what if he had a darker personality than my own? Did not the darkness need the sunrise and the brilliance of the day need the setting of that same sun? I smiled at the thought as I stopped the horse and looked around. I was nowhere recognizable and saw no persons or houses at all. I hoped in my daydreaming I hadn't veered off the correct path, but there was only one way to find out, so onward I went until at last I saw a huge house with a profusion of short trees along the side, all in a row, just as Pauline had described. As I passed it and looked for the turn off to the left as she'd said, there by the broken fence rails, I wondered about the persons that lived behind the walls of the old home. It was a habit of mine for as long as I could remember and happened quite without effort. I'd just find myself thinking about who they were and what they did at any given moment. I wondered if anyone might ride by the little cottage I could now see in the distance and do the same. I hoped they'd feel some presence of happiness and love if they did ponder such things because now, that was really all I longed for and I hoped, whether darkness or light emanated from either of our souls, that if we both at last had found it, such condition would remain. 

When at last I rode up to the cottage door, I could hear his violin as it cut through the cold air of noonday. As far as my ear could discern, he was along the other side, out of sight, practicing or more likely just playing something of his own liking while he was lost to a memory or dreaming of a scene to accompany the rise and depths of his music. I stood there for a moment and watched. The horse had been tied up and the bags hung in my hands forgotten as I was transported by the vision of my beloved. The heavy weight fell from my right hand accidentally and made a loud thud that in turn caused him to abruptly stop, mid-note. The look on his face was immeasurably full of pleasure as he leapt to his feet, careful still to set the instrument down as gently as if it were a child. He turned to embrace me as if he hadn't seen me in weeks and I let the other bag fall away as I laughed and pulled him to me. Our mouths met in longing, the sweet taste of one another a welcome reunion. After several long kisses without care of discretion or restraint, he broke away and backed up to look me over. 

"I'm so glad to see you! Oh it's only been one day? You'll love it here Lestat, it's so quiet. You can sing, yell your lines as loud as you wanted, I can play to my heart's content…" he smiled at me like he found all of that quite remarkable which I suppose after the cramped residence we shared in Paris proper, it was some greater degree of freedom and possibility. The air was colder now than it had been in the confines of the city and by all indications it would soon snow and blanket the hills in whiteness. 

"Yes, Nicolas…" I laughed, "But does it have a fireplace?" One look at the sky told him the reason for such an inquiry as he followed my gaze. 

"It sure as hell does have a fireplace as you would expect, Lestat. I sat by it all last night in fact, thinking of the ways in which we might enjoy it, other than for warmth against any coming storm." At that, he winked at me and gave a hearty laugh while he picked up one bag full of provisions and left another for me. I tousled his hair and snatched up the roast beef Sophia had generously donated. Ah, I thought, life was good. We had each other once again. We had food, fire, moonlight, snow, and every reason to make the most of our intimate time together. I absolutely could not wait to live with him in this way, to be so real and fulfilled if only for a little while. We stepped into the little rooms with the low ceiling, the furniture that made our tiny, barren room even more foreign, the bed… good God there was a real bed! I sighed, he held my hand, and we were transported into a dimension that could have swallowed me forever without objection.


	16. Admission

We took our horses up to the small stable behind the main house and once they'd been settled, went to make proper introductions to the tenants. The elder man and his wife both appeared in the doorway and watched our approach. From the cold, we were ushered inside the larger stone house, offered beverages and our take of fresh, warm stew. Though I had the larder I'd brought from Sophia, I knew it would keep for at least another night in the frigid temperatures. Of course, we didn't want to appear rude so we accepted their hospitality and joined them around a large wooden table, and soon felt as if we truly were among family. We ate and drank and spun subtle falsehoods about our lineage and current association with their friend and landowner, Pauline. They as well as Nicolas were shocked to learn of her misfortune on the ice that had left her laid up and unable to visit this time around. Would I tell them of their concern and best wishes? Of course, absolutement, my new friends. 

I sat back when my stomach was full, sipped my wine and became lost for several moments in observation of the situation. It wasn't above my notice that the whole thing had the appearance of one of our little plays, perhaps a scene from something in a director's mind, something as yet unrehearsed. Here we were, all of us dedicated to the melodrama without even knowing it. Nicki's voice broke my concentration, and without even a word I knew his desire to be alone, if not for the sake of physical intimacy, then just to have our world back for a little while. To each of us, it seemed so new and surreal that at times just being quiet in one another's presence was enough of a confirmation that neither of us was imagining the experience. He had made some remark that led the older gentleman onto another proud tale about his life here in the country hills, but I was barely listening. I watched my lover who sat in a chair near the window and let his eyes rove over the newly blanketed ground. It had begun to snow again. I could see fat white flakes falling into the panes behind his dark hair, and thought it made a captivating contrast. I could have stared at him for hours while I wondered what thoughts moved through his mind. He turned my way, breaking the hold my eyes wanted to keep. 

"We really should be getting back, before this gets too bad." He said as he rose from the chair and gathered his coat up around his shoulders. "We have a lot to do in the morning." It wasn't really untruthful, for we'd promised Pauline our masculine assistance in repair of a few neglected fixtures here and there. I followed that lead and grabbed my own from the next chair at the table, with our sweet, hefty hostess to lend me a hand. She rose, as did her husband and began the usual parting chatter about how nice it had been to meet Nicolas and I, how lovely we were and how she hoped she'd see us over the short time we were there. We promised of course to come to them straight off if we needed even the smallest thing, yes, yes… certainly. The elderly gentleman gave us a great armful of firewood, which we accepted with gratitude and hearty handshakes. As we parted, I leaned up impulsively as the Missus stood in the doorway and gave her a kiss on the cheek. She giggled like a girl and blushed enough that I could see it even in the dim light. With a last wave, she backed in and shut the door, and we were once more in the cold, headed back toward the privacy of our own little domicile. 

"Always the charmer you are!" He joked as we walked. I couldn't help but to join in his laughter. 

"Of course, Nicolas. How else can I ever achieve all that I have planned?" 

He shook his head more at me than to rid it of the thick coat of snow that had fallen onto both of us in the short distance. We stopped outside the cottage beneath the small overhang that covered the arched doorway. Our breath hung in the frosty night air, and a cascade of white shook off our hair in unison, then off of our jackets as we brushed it away. When we stepped inside, we were relatively free of snow before we stood even as we'd done in our little city room, and removed our garments. It was more out of habit than anything. In short time there, in our cramped little space we'd learned to maintain some relative organization in order to have at least a little breathing room and not be tripped on our clothing. Of course since we'd become lovers, there were other reasons. Those merits didn't escape my attention when we both were left in just our undergarments. It was a sore temptation to just pull him close and cover his face with fevered kisses, but there were details to which we should attend, and after all, we had time. The fact that we were here, alone and unexamined for the next few days made my heart sing, and as I reminded myself of that fact I couldn't help but smile. 

I picked up some of the firewood and carried it over to the hearth to start a little fire while Nicolas put out the food I'd brought. I brought over our damp clothing and hung it carefully on the edge of the mantle. No, I thought, perhaps not. I took it down and laid it over the backs of the chairs to dry. Interesting as it might be in explanation and consequence, to accidentally burn our clothes was not recommended. I chuckled at the imagined results if indeed such a thing would have occurred, and turned to see Nicolas seated on the sofa that was decorated with a thin red and blue-striped fabric. He once again seemed captivated by something outside the window, and wholly unaware of me at all. 

"What's bothering you tonight, Nicki?" I sat down behind him and with some hesitance, moved my fingers into the hair that rested against his shoulders. "Nothing in particular." The answer was blank and he hadn't looked back at me or responded in any way. Still, I didn't take it personally and I left my hand in place. 

"You're thinking of this new sonata you have planned for the play? I've heard you working on it, and I know it's going to be wonderful. I love it when you play your own music, and so does everyone in the audience." That earned a gentle smile in my direction, but his tone was still indifferent. 

"The music seems harder if I think about it so much beforehand. I mean to say, it seems as if I'll never be able to perform the things I've written. Once I am there you know, it comes on its own but I'll tell you this much Lestat, as much as it consumes me once I've started, as much as I'll lose myself to the notes and images, there is still some knot of fear inside, deep and fraught with the idea that I might at once forget it all or commit some grave mistake." 

I could hardly believe that for the perfection I'd seen and heard as he filled the theatre with his passion. I assured him that I too suffered from equal trepidations. "Nicolas, don't think I haven't experienced the very same ideas! Always in the dances there's the question: What if I trip and land on my face? What if in the love scenes I say the wrong thing or from my lips produce some great unmannerly noise such as I did at our lovely meal this evening?" He laughed out loud for a minute as he pictured that act, as did I. Of course I'd probably have died in the footlights if ever such a thing took place, but to imagine it was something quite amusing. 

"You never do, Lestat, nor would you. I have never seen you uncomfortable, never seen you stumble in any way. You barely even rehearse your lines and you know that for a fact. Yet it comes flawlessly each time, as if you've done it all your life and always will. I've never seen you angered or frustrated, or in the least way intimidated by what you've got ahead of you on that stage on any given night. Me? I find myself tense before each performance, filled with that dread … and then I look up when you come out, the music begins all around me and my hands find their own way, like magic." 

"Music is inside of you Nicolas!" I moved so that he should see the sincerity in my eyes and I held his hands in my own. "Think of all you've gone through to be right where you are now! Think of your time with Mozart, Nicolas and your lover… the tragedy of it too. If music, if that violin weren't meant to be played by these very hands, you'd have come home with your head hung low and worked out your days in your father's shop. Can you imagine a life such as that, because I cannot, not for you! You doubt it now that you're here on this road? Now that we, Nicolas, we, are on this road to what fame we will find together?" I knew that I'd spoken more harshly than I'd intended, and perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned his lover, but truly I believed that was all a part of who he now was, as a man and as a musician. He smiled up at me slowly while I knelt in front of his seat. "It's not this way, Lestat, not as you are saying… but I cannot explain it in the right words. All of what you say, my violin, you know how I love it beyond merely an instrument and all it has meant to me." He shook his head and sat so long in silence that I moved back enough to sit down on the floor and watch to see if he'd offer any conclusion. When I moved, it seemed to bring his attention back. "You, my friend. It's you who will find fame along this road, not I." This stunned me to the point I couldn't respond. Was he saying now that he didn't want to pursue our fortune? After all of our discussions and so recently all we'd shared in passion, was this sojourn to the country some form of farewell? I felt indignation rise and when I stood up, my voice would not come. I stammered and looked at him, then away, then at him once more. 

"I told you," He continued, "I cannot find the words which would relate this feeling my love. Have you never just felt something as a certain truth, Lestat?" Unfair, I thought. Of course I had. I wouldn't be here if I damn well hadn't felt and known the truth of various things. Damn his logic and questions. Why was he doing this? "I see you there, on stage, and even every day when we are at the taverns or shops… whether you're passing time with the common man or the poets and artists who gather in those exclusive parlors where you fancy inviting yourself. We're just not destined for the same level, that's what I believe. I will play in the theatre, maybe for a long time but someone Lestat, will come along and see you on that stage and then it will all change for you. You'll see." 

I couldn't find my voice still, but as I watched him stand in approach, the threat of anger and doubt I'd known only a moment before was diminished and in that space there was something else, though it would have been impossible to name. I felt the urge to shake him hard enough to loosen his teeth and demand that he cease such talk! Beneath all of that though, there was something closer to resignation, and from that, sadness all in a matter of seconds. The expression on his face fluctuated as rapidly as my own emotions while we watched one another. 

"I've said all the wrong things tonight, haven't I?" The little smile he offered couldn't obliterate the sudden, obvious chill in our cottage. Time had passed in some other dimension as he'd spoken, and what hour it might be was uncertain. The little fire I'd built was nothing but embers. I once again stammered and told him that it was all right, even if I knew it wasn't. He came closer and wrapped both of his strong arms around me. I was glad both for the warmth and the immediate reassurance it offered and still in some way I was reluctant to return the embrace. I was still stunned by his ideologies on our future lives. Fame? Well that hardly mattered. I could be one place and he another. That could work. Couldn't it? What about the two of us? What about this, here and now? Eventually, though to him it surely seemed without hesitation, I put my arms around him as well. "We're here to be together, aren't we? Here I am talking about such things when it's obvious how much you don't want to hear it. So then put it away. Forget I've mentioned it, Lestat." He looked down at me in something of a mock pleading. "Please, sweet Prince? Forgive me." With a kiss on my nose, he moved away as if I'd already granted him that benediction, but perhaps he was correct in such an assumption. 

He rekindled the fire and as I watched the cast of firelight overtake the shadows of his features, the sadness would not leave either my eyes or my mind. I thought to myself that if we were to have any chance for enjoyment of this time together, I must push it away, even if that meant confronting it once more at another time. When he turned back to face me, he wore a smile as if I'd dreamed the whole thing. I mustered a feeble grin and settled in the softness of the closest armchair. 

"Really you know, you always did have such a passion when it came to words. You take me far too seriously my lover." He came once again to me, and sat on the rolled arm of the chair. He bent low and close as I answered. 

"Yes I do, and you know why." I smiled after the solemnity of the statement. He kissed my upturned lips soft and slow and in that, I wanted only to fold myself into his arms and beg that we never leave this place, that we never again speak of such things, that never… but I maintained my dignity and when he sat up once more, I laid my head against his leg while we both looked into the flames in silence. It was almost enough… and then he stood up rather suddenly, backed away with some degree of seriousness and studied my resigned appearance. He looked back and forth, uttered a few concerned noises, a "Hm," and an "Ah hah, yes…" Like a doctor, examining a new patient. I smiled as I watched him pace in that mock distress though I played along and tried to look expectant of some diagnoses. 

"Lestat de Lioncourt, I want you to know one thing." Ah, here it comes I said to myself. Dr. Nicolas is going to proclaim the cure. "Even if… no matter where this all leads for you and I, together I hope… but no matter, I want you to know, I am so blessed to have loved you, and I do love you like no other before." His eyes I thought, how they shone like liquid ebony. "I don't want to upset you and I'm sorry that I have, but this you must know because I don't want you to think that I am backing out on you Lestat. I'm fallible, and I fear more than you know, but one thing, this, is more honest than anything I've ever known or revealed in all of my life. This love I have for you. I'll always feel it as I do now, whether you've been whisked away to the Comedie and I'm playing for pennies on the Avenue. It really doesn't matter. Love is just what it is, in the end." Had Nicolas in fact been a doctor he might have needed to give me oxygen because I could not for a minute get my breath to come or go normally. All I could do without thought is let the tears finally come. In what he'd just said, beautiful though it all might have been, I'd heard a commitment to what we had begun and perhaps from relief not only at knowing he understood my own heartache, but hearing him say it, all I could manage was a bout of incessant sniffling. He stood up and pulled me close to his chest. There I remained and let the heat of the room, the beat of his heart and the intimate, spicy smell of his skin calm me. At last in a quiet voice he continued as he held me. 

"Ssh… no more of that now. We're here to find some peace away from the prying eyes of the city, and now I've upset you so. Let me make it up to you my sweetness." I didn't want to move. I wanted nothing more than his body against mine and when he started to step back, I clung in obvious protest. 

"Lestat, honestly…" He laughed softly and the rumble of his chest made me smile as I held fast. "You act as if you have the honest desire to stand here all night when if you looked around, you might remember where we are and that right over there is something I don't think you've ever had the pleasure to experience." I turned around, really somehow unaware of our current surroundings. It had always been that way from our earliest discussions together. Scenery faded into the background it seemed. Yet now when I looked around I saw the cottage, and thought of why we'd been so excited about this trip at all. We could be together as we'd never known, almost proper one could say, with an actual bed to support our lovemaking. It waited over to one side, against the wall that faced the fire. We could lie there and watch it, surrounded in such softness as we fell asleep in sweet exhaustion. The thought made me eager and the desperation faded almost instantly. I laughed and stepped back just enough to let him know I'd gotten the message loud and clear. Mm, oh no, I didn't want to stand here any longer. Pleasant as it was in time of need, no longer was the wish to be held as if I were a child. I wanted only to know him as a man. I wanted to cover him, inch by inch with my body and make him rise against me in pleasure. Though by now we'd performed that symphony many times, I wanted nothing more than to hear the rapturous rise and fall of the music that together only we could create.


	17. Assuredness

While I stood there and watched him, I knew that the expressions on my face must once again be mixed . I felt still some measure of inexplicable longing that was mixed with overwhelming desire; I was a child wanting solace while I played with fire. To say that I wanted him would have been insignificant, for it was always so much greater than a physical hunger. When I watched Nicolas moving with that sensual grace, when I knew he was as ready as I, there was no way to name what stirred within my soul. What mattered more was that I knew the same feelings were just beneath the surface in his mind, and that when we came together, all of that would meld, and mix and fade away the waking world until there was nothing more. Neither of us could permanently obliterate the society that forbade such intimacies, nor the hardships we faced, but in those hours, there existed a sacred space. When I stopped to think on it, I found myself quite daft and dreamy, and more than once such moments had come when I was sitting alone in the theatre on the edge of the stage. I'd recite my lines, then pause because one of the passages reminded me of something Nicolas had said, and there I would be, staring off into the darkness beyond as I imagined the two of us in passion. 

Now, he walked toward me with a look of concentration, and as I stepped backward I pulled off the last of my clothing with barely concealed impatience, though I tried to be subtle and tease him. He mimicked each movement, step for step, tug for tug, and his own underclothes lay in a pile beside my own as he came against me and pulled me into his arms at the edge of the mattress. The feel of it against the back of my thighs was totally unfamiliar, and because I knew that in mere moment, Nicolas and I would be upon it in lustful commission, I laughed softly as my approval of the fact became even more evident against his body. 

"You look almost afraid, Lestat." He smiled and leaned down to breathe against my neck. "Surely you're not anticipating anything too frightening now, are you?" There came a low bit of laughter from his lips against my neck, and I shivered again. I pressed against him both to show my lack of intimidation and because his weight threatened to topple me most ungracefully onto the linens. He didn't care. That was exactly what he wanted and when he pushed back, down I went with one arm around his neck. He came right down with me and our laughter filled the room. 

"I'm not scared of you in the least though you are a monster, Nicolas!" I playfully pushed at him and feigned my distress at being trapped under his weight. Oh please Sir, let me go! It was wonderful to feel the contrast between the soft cool bedding beneath and the hard, eager warmth of him above. We rolled over and back in quiet celebration of such a moment but made no move to take it further. There was no urgency, and truthfully I was deliriously aroused just by the way he was kissing me. He would let his tongue explore, slowly and pull back only for a second or two. As he moved against me, almost making love to me in motion if not truth, he would capture my mouth wholly, the heat of his breath mingled with my own. The feeling of our organs, engorged and rubbing together was an unexpected pleasure that when coupled with his mouth upon my own was nearly enough to induce a too quick climax and that I wanted to hold off, so I pushed as hard as I could and rolled him over onto his back. The look of surprise made me laugh out loud once again and I took my time with showing him why I'd done such a thing. I started at his throat and moved downward, with a lick here and a kiss there. A slight tug on his nipple with my teeth elicited the most wonderful gasp as his whole body tensed. I moved my hand along the muscles of his belly and across his thighs, and finally wrapped it around his hardness. I felt more than heard the moan that such action produced, since I was kissing him just below his chest. The warmth of his skin tightened and he breathed my name as I touched him there. I could have heard it a million times and never grown tired of the sound. When the sight of him so held by my hand came into view, I understood how it felt for him, and I wanted only to satisfy him more. I kissed him as he had done to me, long and slow. I lay half on top of him, moving my hips against his while my hand continued. I wanted everything. I wanted to watch him reach the point of no return yet in the end, the need and desire to kiss him with blind hunger won out, and it was in such oblivion that I heard the sweetness of my name whispered over and over as he reached his climax. He struggled for breath and I couldn't resist the temptation to taste the pleasurable yet indescribable results of my efforts. As he lay there with his eyes closed, my fingers came almost secretively to my lips, full of that flavour. 

I wasn't quick to explore what lay there, though certainly the image at least of dipping my head to taste that nectar did swim into my mind. For the time being, I was unusually preoccupied with kissing him around those soft moans of relief. The beat of his heart was strong beneath the wander of my fingers, and of course I only wanted more and more. The fact that I was physically quite ready for more was forgotten to me until I felt his hand, big and strong around me there. I gasped even as he rolled me over and trapped me against the bed that felt at once soft and firm. The absence of the gritty, hard floor beneath the nakedness of my backside was in itself some form of heaven. That my skillful lover had pinned me in such a place made it even more blissful. He alternated between tender kisses and rough bites to my chest that caused me to yelp out loud and push him away. Never mind the fact that I pulled him right back! Oh Nicki, Nicki, my mind sang. I buried my fingers in his hair and growled with delight at the sin we shared. He moved down and bit at my hips and thighs which caused me to laugh with wicked anticipation as I wondered where those teeth might land next or if he'd instead choose to give one of those long, slow traces with his tongue. Ah, he had me spellbound and I was oblivious to anything else but for the way he was coaxing me toward that ultimate moment just as I had done. Always it seemed so different though, with Nicolas. It wasn't merely that we had different approaches, habits and styles both as individuals and lovers, it was more than that yet indefinable. He was unpredictable, far more so than I even though I damn sure couldn't be classified as uncreative in that area. Nicolas of course had greater experience, and there had been many times when I was alone that I'd fallen into a semi-erotic daydream as I wondered just what sort of intimate scenes he'd played out with his tragic lover and others I was not aware of in his past. He definitely could have a bend for cruelty this lover and friend of mine, but I was absolutely not complaining. Our lovemaking turned rougher as he pressed down onto my body and ground his hips and half-renewed hardness against my own. I knew that his long fingers held and played both organs in time, bound together in pleasure. His mouth crashed against mine, and again he bared his teeth like a wild animal with a snarl to accompany such that passionate grimace. 

"Tell me you want it Lestat! Tell me. I want to hear you begging for what you need!" His voice was thick and dark. Somehow it seemed far away, as if he were not for a moment my Nicolas but another entity in his form. His thumb stroked the sensitive, exposed tip of my organ, and I could sense the wetness there that would soon be spread in even greater abundance. "Come on, damn it, say it, tell me how you want me to make it happen, give it to me now, Lestat!" 

"Nicki, oh God yes, Nicki, please!" It was not good enough for him, this savage devil that had filled the body of my friend. He wanted to hear my mouth utter filthy pleas for his touch, and so I cried out and gave him those words. The last thing I heard before my body relinquished the gold he sought was low and wicked laughter coming from deep in his chest. It shook against my own and for the tiniest second, a minute sense of fear preceded the climax. Then it was forgotten as wave after wave of sensation overtook my brain, as the voluminous milky-white liquid spilled onto my skin, and as I sensed that he too had reached that point once more, right along with me. The room seemed humid with our love, and Nicolas almost dutifully went to the task he enjoyed perhaps more than the deed itself, and removed all trace of our shared releases. I luxuriated in each lap of his tongue against my skin which was even more sensitive than usual given the friction it had just known. I stretched my arms out behind my head and nearly purred in contentment as he bathed me in such a way. Dear God, that I could know any bit of heaven greater than this, I couldn't imagine. It was certainly nothing I'd ever dreamed of having in my life and each time I thought of the differences in between the past and what I knew now in my days and nights, I came close to delirious, child-like joy. Now, clean and tired, I wanted nothing more than this man. I wanted him against me, in my arms and in my soul. I wanted us to dissolve into sleep and into one another. When he came up beside me, he no longer looked like the demon that had wanted to hear vulgarities as I spent myself. He was once again the boy I'd always known, and the man with the deep, dark eyes I'd only recently come to call my lover. I moved in tight against him to insist he pull me even closer. Without hesitation, I was full against his side. There were no words exchanged that night as we fell asleep. In some way, the lack of quiet chatter or affirmations made what we'd done more certain. Like many things in the world, there was no need to talk about them in order to know their truth and reality. The sun would rise tomorrow, or perhaps it would be another gray Parisian morning. Either way, just as certain here I would be with Nicolas, and as I gave way to sleep beneath the thick, warm bedding, I wanted nothing else in the world.


	18. Reciprocation

Over the next few days, Nicolas and I attended to the things that Pauline had wanted us to get done, and given that he and I were each from backgrounds of relative ease, it was at times nothing short of amusing. The snow that first night had fallen to enough depth that when I toppled from the ladder my fall was at least cushioned, though it didn't help either my pride or the redness that later showed up halfway down my back. Nicolas of course thought it to be dreadfully funny and instead of offering a hand up, he threw a gigantic ball of snow almost directly at my head and when I returned that effort with a barrel full of curses, he jumped on top of me and rolled me over in the snow until all I could do was laugh, despite the pain. We spent another night having supper with the old couple up at the main house. I let little details of my profession slip into the conversation and I admit to feeling a boost to my ego when they made those soft expressive sounds that told me they were impressed to be meeting as they said, "An up and coming actor". I didn't give too many details away, because I feared that if they ever did come to Paris and see one of the plays, or if I did indeed find the fame I longed for, they would discover the truth behind our little rouse. I didn't wish to bring any embarrassment or shame to Pauline, nor did I really desire any upon Nicolas and I. There were of course obvious moments when I wished to climb to the highest rooftop and yell down to the entire city in announcement of our licentious liaison. Until one knew however just how any individual would react, it was best to keep such things well under wraps. 

As for our intimate hours together, they were not something we hurried toward in those days or nights for it felt as if we had the freedom to do whatever we wanted together, whenever the urge took place. We weren't concerned with theatre details or even the common thought of where we might find ourselves a cheap meal. All we needed to do was spend time with one another. When the sun broke and melted away most of the snow, we saddled up the horses and rode through the countryside. When we found ourselves deep in a forest where the warm rays had not yet touched the whiteness, I was naturally reminded of my past and kept one eye wary for the approach of wolves. I figured that perhaps I always would do such a thing, and Nicolas found that slightly preposterous, and dismissed the notion that there would not always be such challenges. 

"Well maybe not wolves, Nicolas, but I've seen that there are far more obstacles than one expects to encounter. The wolves were but one example. Don't you think we've met up with our fair share, each of us?" 

"Of course I do. I'm only saying that," He paused as we sat in a clearing. "Do you think that if you hadn't fought off those wolves, that everything would be different now?" 

"For you and I?" My horse dug his hooves into the ground impatiently but I stayed my place and thought about his question in earnest. "There's no way to tell, I would say. You were in the same village as I after all and we had known one another since childhood. Gabrielle liked you well enough and perhaps you'd have come to see me at another time and our conversations would have started then and led to this very day as we are now." 

"Perhaps. You killed them for a reason though Lestat. It wasn't only to redeem yourself with your family and rid the village of such monsters." He shook his head and I once more smiled for the way his dark locks played against his face. When they were damp with his sweat the clung for just a moment before loosening and I thought it made him look like a boy much more than a man. "I bet if you hadn't killed those wolves, it would have taken a lot longer for you and I to reunite as friends and what we have as lovers might never have existed at all. You might be still stuck in Auvergne, left to make little more of your days and nights than a fantasy of your next escape. You were so clever in that of course." 

I had to laugh as we started on toward the cottage. "I was brilliant at getting out, Nicolas, and I tell you this - whether I'd killed wolves or somehow woven myself a grand tunnel to Italy, I'd have gotten free of the place again. You can bet on that!" He nodded in hearty agreement that I surely would have been so determined. He asked me various questions that led into my vague thoughts and recollections on what led up to that day when I ventured into the woods with my weapons, and for some odd reason I felt a bit of relief as I replayed it in my words and mind. Here in the crisp air, there was no threat of menace as there had been that morning. For now, there seemed only the promise of the future. 

When we'd stabled the horses and eaten once more, there was little to do but take in the soft light of the fading afternoon from the comfort of the small sitting area. We talked about nothing in particular while each of us took turns building the fire up higher than we ever might have in our own little apartment. Eventually, everything wound up in a warm haze, and I closed my eyes. I fell asleep and into dreams of being on the little stage in a time the seemed long ago, when I'd run off with the little band of performers. Someone in the little band of raggedy musicians was playing the violin. Why did it sound so far away as I bowed for the unseen audience? How long passed before my eyes once again opened I wasn't sure, but they were filled with surreal visions. It had evidently begun to rain and being as cold as it was outside, there was no alternative than for the water to freeze almost instantaneously. Outside the window, the branches were coated in ice, and with the sky behind lit in hues of purple and orange, it was really quite a spectacle. The door had been left open to an impractical degree considering the heat we were trying to conserve and beyond it in the gray coming of night, was Nicolas. He leaned against the broken brick and stucco surface at the corner of the cottage, one leg tucked under him and against the wall. His violin was perched on his shoulder and only for a moment did he pause before quietly caressing the strings once more. I understood that this had been the invasive violin in my dream, but still as I watched it did not seem real. The piece he was playing wasn't familiar. It was nothing from our upcoming performance or anything currently being performed by one of the great composers. At times he might take an existing sonata or one that had just debuted, and blend it with his own timing and interpretations to make a new and beautiful result. This music was mournful and profound. He played in a crystalline cathedral of nature, beneath deepened red-purple skies; I thought it a miracle that I alone was allowed to witness yet perhaps heaven itself had paused to listen to Nicolas, there in the chilly air. The sky, the land, and the moment were frozen in time. 

I rose and made my way over to the door as quietly as possible for fear of breaking the spell or disturbing that lovely rise and fall of the unrecognizable, bittersweet tune. When I looked more closely, I thought that I might not have bothered him even if I had been clumsy, for he was lost to the sound as well. His eyes were closed and I knew even without a guess that he had surely looked around at the beauty of our world, taken a permanent, instant picture of it in his mind, and closed his eyes in surrender. The music then was almost a process of what he saw and felt. That knowledge caused me to once again look around and as the darkness had almost fully set in, the ice looked darker, more dangerous perhaps. The cold seemed suddenly more inhospitable than anything, and had I thought on it just a moment longer, I'd have remarked out loud on the one overwhelming impression it left, which in a word was desolate. Beautiful loneliness. 

"Nicki," I whispered softly, the word barely formed on my lips. I whispered more to myself than for his ears. "Perfection, my beloved Nicolas, your creations." I smiled and rubbed my hands over my arms in the cold. He'd stopped playing nearly as soon as I'd spoken, but for a second or two he remained in that otherworldly stupor before opening those dark eyes to look over at me. When he did, again I was left with the impression that he realized he was back from whatever place he went to in the music, and that I was whole and real. He smiled and pulled me close. 

"Lestat," He let his leg fall off the wall with a scrape and sighed against the bricks. In some part, he seemed almost disappointed to see me as I stood there, and so I waited to hear more, but there was nothing. He merely wanted to hold me, for he had forgotten himself in the cold, faded light of day. I moved against him to give him the comparable warmth my body could offer. Of course I adored the way he nuzzled in underneath the fall of my hair, and in seconds we were both laughing easily and heading back inside with another armful of the wood we'd chopped that morning. Nicolas let me carry every bit of it of course. We wouldn't want to accidentally toss the violin into the flames! 

"You know Lestat," He said when we finally were sitting once more. "I have to say that these last few days and nights have been absolutely perfect. I wish I had the sort of benefactors, or even the sort of father I might just visit and ask to finance the purchase of some sort of cottage just like this, or even this one really. Pauline would sell it to me." 

"You're so sure of that are you? Why don't you ask some of the aristocrats in the city? Perhaps we could share it out for those who indulge in such illicit love affairs?" 

"Illicit." He laughed. "We're perfectly legitimate in those circles and you know it, but I'll tell you, that's not a bad idea overall my friend, not bad at all. Consider it, perfect as it is now for us, perhaps it could be for others. What about your desires as well, hm? You want a place you can bring your mother. She could come here and be surrounded with peace and warmth, and gentlemen even more dandy than her own son!" 

I knew he was joking but I still made a scornful face at him. "I'm not a dandy, Nicolas. I'm a flamboyant actor." I laughed out loud even as I tried to imply such a substantial difference. "Anyhow, Gabrielle wouldn't much like to have all sorts of men around, dandy or not. She keeps to herself in many ways." 

"It would be a damn sight better than that decrepit, old castle she calls a home and the tyranny of your father." He paused. "Yes, I am aware that my own is a beast as well. That's one reason we're so fit for one another you and I." 

"Are you going to say perfect again?" 

"Yes. I think I want to believe that you and I are perfect. Whether we are or aren't I suppose would vary from day to day, no?" 

"Nothing is perfect, Nicolas. Not even you and I together in or out of bed." I laughed once again as I nodded in that direction. He too nodded, acknowledging perhaps that even when we had disagreements or misunderstandings they always seemed to be resolved once were on that particular stage together. "I've come to believe that perfection is just an illusion. What you think isn't always what exists in the end." 

"Oh God, not that again. Tell me you won't start into your theories on man and existence Lestat. Truly, I wasn't trying to be overly philosophical. You've spent too much time lately talking with Gavin St. Charles and the rest of them. Soon enough you'll be wearing a horrid gray suit, proper shoes and reciting poems about the intricacies of damnation. Really. All I was saying is that this here," He gestured with his hands as I watched with interest. "It's been perfect. I almost hate to go back tomorrow." 

"The intricacies of damnation. I'll have to look into that, Nicolas. Would that be Lord Byron or some dazzling unknown? I'll spare you all the words of the Saints which I could very well recite from memory." He gave me an amused sneer, and I got down onto the floor and crawled over to rest my head against his leg until he relented and ruffed his hand through my hair. "It hasn't been just quite perfect, Nicolas. Oh true enough, this has all been very wonderful and I'm grateful to Pauline for the whole experience. It would be marvelous if you could buy such a little home such as this cottage. We could steal away here and there and perhaps you'd eventually even break down and let our time together become totally perfect." 

"There's no such thing as perfect, Lestat." I chuckled as I moved up onto my knees and looked up toward his face. He was very good at logging my words into memory in order to remind me to my benefit or detriment, whether it was weeks or seconds later. "Make it perfect you say? First of all, if there's no such condition, how could I create it and secondly, even if there is such nirvana, why do you say the power is in my hands? I think I'm rather in the same boat as you my friend when it comes to what control I have over this liaison and what time we can steal away together." 

"Yes, but there's one thing you could do to make such little escapes better. At least there's something you could do to make this one a bit closer to perfect." I bit my lip and moved my hands upward onto the thin material of his underclothes. We'd opted for them since we weren't going out anymore that evening and they were a comfortable, if not fashionable habit. When I reached the point where I could slip my fingers inside, I did just that while retaining a suggestive smile. "Are you honestly never going to let me have a taste of you, Nicolas?" The smile curved into what I hoped to be an irresistible pout and it was rewarded. He put a hand on top of mine and before he could do what I anticipated and push my inquiry away, he instead began a slow massage, causing my hand under his to feel the resultant interest. 

"Why is it so irresistible to you Lestat? Honestly, you're like a child who simply for the sake of being told he is forbidden a thing, only seeks to obtain it in greater amount!" He laughed some, but didn't change his position and I didn't argue his analogy. 

"That much you're right about, it's true." I admitted. "I don't see why you never want to let me. Of course I am not proficient and skilled in such art of pleasure, but you know I have a knack for success." Proudly I smiled as I leaned up even farther so that my face was positioned just above the treasure. "Don't I?" I laughed. "Or is it a thing for which I must take instruction? Do they have such schooling in the city, Nicolas?" He moved my hand away now with his own and freed that part of himself. Once again I marveled at seeing him so close and aroused. Another man had never looked so inviting. It was the same equipment as my own and yet I found that I was literally hungry for it, in salivating fascination. 

"They don't." He moved in the chair so he could open up the front of his garment and further expose that lengthy, begging organ. "Have schools that is, for such skills." He laughed. 

"Why is it I feel that if such education were possible, it might well be something you'd enjoy in not so silent observance?" I breathed down over the edge of his hardness and paused, for still I felt that he was not going to allow such a thing. He hadn't before and while I understood that he enjoyed being the one to perform such an act, I wanted at least occasionally to share the sensual comprehension of why he enjoyed it so much. His voice was low with lust as he spoke in between moving my hand back once more and caressing my face with his fingers. 

"Do you think I'd like to watch that, my lover? You, in shameless practice upon how many other men?" I could tell that just saying such a thing excited him. "You have no idea Lestat, how many perversities I might enjoy with you. We'll have to explore them one by one, won't we?" I nodded without a word, but as I'd imagined such an affair, my own arousal had piqued and it really wouldn't have mattered to me if he had pushed me away then and there and begged me to do anything else. Yet instead of meeting that expectation, he pulled my lips closer with one hand on the back of my neck. In a soft voice that sounded anything but instructive, he brought me into the experience. 

There was the musky smell of his skin, not unclean but earthy, warm and humid. It reminded me of another scent that I couldn't place, but it was not the time to reach for that answer. Against my lips he was silky wet with excitement, and the taste was saline sweetness. I considered for a brief second that I was in an unusual predicament: I'd waited to have him in such a way, and yet I didn't truly have the first notion how to proceed! Oh certainly, I'd looked down upon him as he took me in the same manner, but it wasn't as if I'd been consumed with the urge to study what he was doing. When he had me in the throes of such ecstasy, I may well not have remembered my own name had someone been rude or intrusive enough to ask. So in that instant, as his hands were encouraging me, as they pulled me down onto him, when I felt him enter my mouth so naturally, I did what came rather naturally to me, and went along as if I did know just what I was doing. 

With slowness must have seemed a deliberate part of the performance, I sank down lower onto him, while at the same time I rose to my knees so that I was fully able to continue. In tandem, I moved and he moaned, much to my delight. It was like fuel for me to hear those sounds of pleasure, and I wanted only to make him delirious. I wanted him do as I'd done so many nights, and dissolve into tears from the waves of pleasure. I commenced the effort to bring about such an effect, and took him in earnest, working my lips from the wiry hairs where that elusive scent clung so sweetly to the peak beneath that velveteen skin that offered my lips the intoxicating nectar with the promise of more, should my skills prove worthy. I thought for a minute as I listened to him alternate between moans and wicked coaxing, that though I was enjoying the experience for what effect it was having on him, I was thouroughly fascinated just by doing it at all! I'd waited so long that I wanted to touch and taste and examine as if I'd never seen such a piece of equipment in my life. I urged him to lie back more in the chair, and when he moved, down came the rest of the material that kept all of his skin from my hands. Oh, how I wanted to touch him. I caressed his legs upward to the damp crevice, which he eagerly parted for more. How terrible his curses came, how entranced was I to hear them! I followed his lusty commands, however took my time in doing so - for I knew very well from being on the receiving end, that demands were only such to an extent. He, as much as I, would alternately hate and love being played with and so that is precisely what I did! I dipped below with my head and coddled the tender flesh into my mouth, one by one, then farther down still, as he began to writhe almost out of the chair. I gave a low bit of laughter as I looked up to observe his condition, for I was sure that I must have appeared as equally out of my mind with pleasure under his control. 

He leaned up and opened his eyes, aware of the shift in my position. Urgently he lifted enough to grab a thick handful of my hair and pull me down to his lips in a bruising kiss that was equaled only by the heaviness of his breathing. He was lost to pent up passion and my lips, wonderfully tender from my novice efforts to pleasure him felt swollen against the heat of his mouth. He didn't give me time to explore that feeling for long as the hand that still held my hair so tight jerked me backward and then pushed me down once more in something of a sweet punishment, toward what lay needful and pulsating against his belly. Instantly I craved it once more. I had never thought that something of the sort could inspire genuine hunger, but damn if I did not want to taste every inch of it and every bit of what I knew it could give me in the end. 

Tentatively, I suckled at the fountain it had become, for I wanted more. Nicolas however, wanted more as well and with that singular intent on his mind, told me in no uncertain terms what to do… and again, I did them, sooner or later. I could have kept myself there between his legs in service all night long, honestly I could have! I'd have let him cool off, watched that magnificence become sleepy and then relished in having it once more, soft and workable in my mouth. God, but I could have become addicted and I certainly understood why Nicolas craved it as he did, aside from any connection it might have to his past lovers. It was a delicacy, a meal of one's lover, and this I had already decided. Hell, I'd decided that within the first few minutes and with deliberation, going on his responses, words and movements, I set in for the final reward. His trousers cast aside like rags, his legs back so shamelessly… ah Nicolas, yes… he'd lost all hope of control and I loved the abandon. In the dim light of the room he was shiny wet and I smiled in secret before using that to my advantage. My hand wrapped around him, working slow but steady for just a moment, and then, replaced by my mouth, two fingers went below to slip easily inside his upturned bottom. Had I not been prepared, I might have choked for the way he thrust himself upward, but I backed up ever so slightly, keeping excellent time with his body, knowing how it must feel. He once more grabbed into my hair and let out a whine that anyone could have easily confused with a long and carried note from his violin in any other situation. He tried to mutter my name at the end of it, but all that came was the L, and a few E's and the barely audible hiss of the S, and then in for punctuation came the clench of his muscles and the tight, jolting release of his lust which I savored as each burst came onto my tongue. My senses reeled in the powerful culmination of the experience. I climaxed with him, not with my body but with each fraction of my mind. I rode the waves of pleasure just as he knew them. As he hit each crest and gradually came back to sanity, I was alongside. That I held him, worked him and collected each and every last bit of this pleasure in evidence was my blessing, and I felt that truly enough that had I thought on it fully, I might have given into tears and forgotten my own arousal. In fact, it had become wholly unimportant, and I went to collect my lover into my arms. Down he came onto the floor beside me, and a small laugh escaped me at his lack of coordination. 

As I had wanted him to be, he was delirious. I smiled down into his heated face, and he returned it weakly, though I knew the expression well from my own experiences in his position. It was that look that said at once gratitude and I can't believe you. It was the face of a happily exhausted man, and as I held him, it wasn't pride I felt for having put him in such a state. It was hard to define, and so I didn't try very hard at all. I merely kept smiling until he regained some of his strength and sat up beside me. 

"If there was such a school, Lestat," He said offhandedly, "You'd fare far better as a professor than a student." 

The statement out of the blue caught me off guard and I had to think of what the devil he meant. School? When he observed my confusion a gale of laughter erupted from the calmness those words had carried just a minute earlier and he hit me in the shoulder. School, I repeated out loud… and then it struck me, what he had been referring to in the jest. I rolled my eyes and wiggled my brows at him while I teased that I'd just been very good at memorizing the details of his teachings. We wrestled on the floor like young men, full of laughter, until he came above me and looked into my eyes with unexpected seriousness that for its sudden appearance was mysterious as well. He studied me while those long fingers played over my face. 

"You know I …" He started to say after a while. 

"I know you do, Nick." 

Nothing more was offered or taken, and in the silent darkness of the room his lips found mine warm and supple. Leisurely, our tongues played with one another, explored and discovered, and finally, he stood up without a word and lifted me into his arms. I gasped, but loved the affect. I could have laughed like his bride, but there wasn't time before he laid me down in the softness of the bed that we'd all but ignored out of habit and once more moved over me and found my mouth again. He was greedy for kisses in the night and I was all too willing to offer them, for I loved kissing almost more than anything. It was somehow even more sacred in certain moments, like now, with his warm, hard chest against mine, the pull of his hands beneath me in my hair and moving all over the same as mine upon him. It was confirmation of one another's existence, again, in silence. There was nothing more I wanted, nothing more I could do other than to open my entire self to him like a sacrifice. There was nothing… more. There was silence, there was Nicolas… and I would have willingly breathed my last for each moment as it passed. Seamlessly, he was inside me, moving warm and full… clutching my head against his chest where my mouth moved in wordless praise. Ah, the softness of the unfamiliar linens beneath, the trembling of his form above me, the scent of our bodies and the sweat in his hair against my face… it was all too much. Surely I would expire! Nicolas seemed to read my thoughts and he held my face in one hand as he mercilessly, exquisitely rotated his hips. Again he wanted my mouth, and I answered, I cried, I wanted him all over. There weren't enough ways to have him at once. Take me there, Nicolas… Dear God in Heaven, there isn't enough, I shouted inside my head as our tongues performed a wild dance. 

I felt him climax seconds before his words came incoherently against my face with each spasm that wracked his body. I held onto him tightly for he was covered in a sheen of sweat, and I not only cherished the physical feeling, but as he let it out in convulsive movements, I feared we might well tumble off onto the floor! His head eventually came to rest against my chest, and I realized his silence said volumes. I wanted to breech the void or tell him something, anything, but nothing seemed worthy or effectual. In the darkness, his skin cooled beneath my hands and I brought the covers up around him. All had evaporated but for the wetness against my chest, and to that, I said not a word. The only consolation I had to give was my body, my soul, and my eternal wonder that a boy like me had been blessed with a love such as ours.


	19. Rehearsal

That night, we'd fallen asleep snug against one another. Nicolas lay behind me as had become his style, with one arm fallen around my waist. Before sleep came to me however, I lay awake in thought while I listened to his breathing become slow and deep. I knew with the coming of light, we'd leave our private shelter and return to the city with it's noise and dirty charm. I regretted our departure if only for the fact that when I was there in Paris, I was somehow a different person than the one now kept tight by his lover's arm. Of course I still loved Nicolas no matter where we might reside, but other intrusions and the appeal of being who I was becoming beckoned and asked for my attention and still I knew if only in some slight degree, that for those, Nicolas bore some resentment. There was no easy answer for such concerns, because I had come to believe that whether it was only in Paris, or beyond and out into the wider world, I was destined to be more than a tarnished aristocrat from the countryside. Yes, I thought, even if I'd stayed with my beloved monks, or the tawdry little theatre of gypsy friends, somehow I'd have managed to create a name for myself. How I knew such a thing I couldn't figure, but it was pure conviction I think from the very first time I'd gone off on my own in an effort to escape the boredom of insignificance. Nicolas had his music and in my eyes he was more talented even than Mozart, but he didn't see it that way. I believed he thought himself a fine enough composer, and there was no doubt that he fell deeply into every note he caressed out of his violin, but he wasn't happy. Sometimes I wondered, if I were to attain great fame and keep him well supplied in the finest instruments, musical supplies and perhaps even students, a concert hall of his very own, or whatever he might want, if he would be pleased. He would not have wanted to be the equivalent of a mistress. Indeed I was sure he wouldn't have stood for it and perhaps even been most insulted. So I was left not knowing quite how to pacify my lover and friend, but one thing I knew was that I would see to it that no matter what renown I might come to know, I would not lose him nor forget him. The thought of it actually made my sleepy eyes sting, and to think that acclaim would separate what we were just discovering was unbearable in the darkness. I pulled his arm tighter against my side and he sighed as he moved closer. Finally I closed my eyes and took his firm, long fingers in mine. I felt their texture and shape as a blind man would have done, and the last thing I remember before the nothingness of sleep came over me, was a soft vision of Nicolas on stage, smiling proudly. In the middle of the night, he surprised me by waking me with gentle kisses and long measured caresses. We made love to one another in turn, slow and deliberate, and again my spirit felt as if it were safe on some nameless ocean as I expired in his arms. 

How quickly the night passed or how long it had been since the dawn arrived I couldn't tell, but when I felt playful nudging of my ribs, I turned and saw that the room was light and he was fully dressed as he lay beside me. 

"Are you going to sleep until the very minute we have to go, or might you like to come up to the main house where we've been invited to breakfast?" He kissed me on the cheek and I could smell the fresh outdoors upon his skin. "I would think you'd like to get one last good meal before we go back to our limited selections, Lestat. I know how you love those fresh croissants." 

I smiled. True enough, I loved a good meal. I could have been fat as a country sow if I'd let my tastes assume control. Luckily, in recent months, I'd developed other appetites, and he satisfied them like no roast or pastry in the world. "Yes, yes." I grumbled as I rose. "I'm famished anyhow. Have you been up for long? It looks as if you've already packed all of our belongings. You're in that much rush to be away, are you?" 

"I just don't see any point in delaying it, Lestat. We do have quite a bit to tend to before the performance you know. It's only the night after next, and I have to practice and polish the music. I would imagine you have to get with the ladies and go over your lines, do you not?" 

"Yes," I sighed. "I wish we did not have to stay there, in Paris. I wish we could go and do the performance and run right back here. It's different here." I was retracing my thoughts from the night, but I left it alone with that statement as I dressed and made sure my hair was presentable. 

"I know it is, and I was dead serious about asking Pauline to sell it to me you know. Your comment that we could share it out was a capital idea, I think. It would give us the use whenever we might choose, and pay for itself in the meantime. Really it's quite brilliant." 

He put all of our belongings by the door and I finished up with the realization that I was indeed starving. As I approached the door I had to laugh with recollection of something he'd said before. "Don't think we're going to have perverse parties here if we do own it, Nicolas. I haven't forgotten your words." I laughed again as we stepped out into the brisk morning. "Share me with others, isn't that what you said?" 

He laughed and slapped my back good naturedly. "I already share you with so many, Lestat. Surely it's something I'm accustomed to but I think in terms of intimacy, I'll keep you for myself." We walked up to the house and as we reached the steps, he laughed and added, "For a while anyhow." I didn't even have the chance to smack him before the door opened and we were welcomed inside. We ate heartily and the combination of rich food and conversation filled me with enormous joy. I felt I was home in this environment, and the generous couple was a too brief substitute for the sort of home life I'd never known. It made me only want to stay longer, but I knew we must be headed back and so it was that shortly, Nicolas and I had collected our belongings and were on our way back to Paris. The skies had clouded over and we both commented that it would likely snow soon. It was still something I'd never gotten used to and didn't much care for at all. 

When we arrived at the outskirts of the city, we paused along the road to survey the rise of buildings in contrast to the more pastured landscapes we'd been privilege to in the past few days. I think somehow neither of us wanted to go back to various aspects of the city, not just because we'd enjoyed the countryside so much, but it also meant once more putting a cloak on our feelings for the most part. At least we could look forward once more to going to the tavern where my new friend and horse lender extraordinaire, Gavin St. Charles would be found, along with the mischief makers who teased Nicolas and I about our fledgling relationship. It didn't matter to me now. I was feeling more confident by far since that first night when he'd kissed me in the alley. It was good that I noticed such effects, and I was sure that everything would be splendid in the end. I refused to give up my belief in goodness, though Nicolas never would give in to such conversations for long. It wasn't that I was an eternal optimist, for certainly a myriad of reasons to be anything but had fallen into my life here and there. I simply believed that we were good, he and I, and as such we were entitled to our happiness, though that wouldn't have been quite the word I'd have used in explaining it to anyone. 

"Well, we aren't so far from home now, hm?" I asked as I watched the cold breath from the horses nostrils. "Our little place will be quite different now." 

"It will seem much smaller, I'm sure." He agreed. "I guess we'll have to resort to our usual clever and inventive ways. In all things." 

I laughed. "Being nearly penniless and having to get our meals here and there isn't the definition of creativity, my friend. We're doing better though, don't you think?" We rode on and soon the streets bore enough semblance of pavement to add our horses hooves to the chorus of clip-clop noise around us. "Soon enough, I bet we'll be able to move right out of our little place and then likely we'll claim what we have is too large. But oh, Nicolas you know, I have to insist that we save enough to get a mattress. It was heavenly wasn't it?" 

He agreed that it was ideal, and we filled the rest of our short journey with idle chatter about the upcoming play, his work that he'd been doing and much to my surprise, he told me that what he'd been playing when I saw him outside of the cottage was in fact a new piece that he planned to debut during the intermission. I was thrilled that he would be playing one of his own compositions, for the more exposure he gave himself as an original, the more I was sure the crowds would ask for him by name. Ah, finally I was getting excited about the event, and for the first time I was eager to be in my dressing room among the clutter, with the heavy smell of makeup and dust. 

We arrived at the Inn, and as I was tying off my horse I heard a little squeal and turned to see Sophia run into Nicolas with her arms wide in greeting. "My friends you've returned! Ah, it was so awfully quiet here without you!" She played with him and he blushed I thought more from not knowing what to say than her teasing. She turned to me and came into my arms with more fervency and I thought, more insinuation - though that might well have been my overactive imagination. She kissed my cheek and then, softly, my lips. I returned the kiss to the apple of her cheek and then lowered my eyes. Without much more, Nicolas and I were headed up the stairs with our sparse belongings. We'd made a promise to go to supper later with Sophia and Arnoux, if we could make it back in time from the theatre. Frankly, I wasn't looking forward to such a get together, for I still hadn't mentioned to him how she'd come onto me just before I left. Whether Sophia still harbored some longing for me as a lover, I was not certain. The idea of an uncomfortable supper with her sitting beside or across from me, not knowing the truth and making subtle insinuations wasn't exactly a comfort. 

When we opened our doorway, it smelled at once stale and familiar. We dropped the bags to the floor and looked around before giving one another a small smile in attempted reassurance. Still, it seemed depressing and neither of us wanted to stay. Full from our great breakfast and with a list of things to do, we were soon off to the theatre and all that waited there. 

Margot was just inside the door when I stepped through with Nicolas close behind. She let out a howl of excitement and grabbed my face in her hands as she kissed my cheeks. Though Nicki came in behind me, she barely greeted him before whisking me off backstage where I was met with almost the same enthusiasm from everyone. At last she and I strolled into my dressing area, which was far more a welcome to my eyes than our apartment had been. As I sat toying with pencils of eye color and thinking over my lines and maneuvers, she filled me in on what gossip had occurred in the time we'd been gone. Collette, it appeared, had gone off and not been heard from since. Margot began to speculate on what everyone thought and how a married man from the Northern side of the city might well be involved. I hardly heard a word she said because I sat there blinking like a stunned animal. She was supposed to have been in the play with me, my partner! What was I going to do? Ridiculous! Why hadn't I been notified! I was all set to storm about with curses and accusations when Margot informed me that Therese would be playing the role instead. I thought for a moment on just who she was. Ah yes, the little raven-haired beauty, the petite girl who sang so well. I remembered her from another scene which I hadn't been a part of, but in which she'd definitely made an impression upon the audience. 

"Has she studied the role right along with Collette?" I asked. I was still terribly upset that this had been thrown into the works without so much as a sneeze in my direction. Of course I wouldn't have wanted Pauline or anyone else for that matter to know where Nicolas and I were and barge in right in the middle of our intimate rehearsals. "Margot, you have to tell me, is she ready for this? I haven't even been here to go over things with her!" 

"Then I'd suggest you get busy, my friend." She replied. "Therese is likely upstairs in one of the rooms, reading through her lines right now. She's thrilled you know, that she will be getting to work with you. If you want my opinion, you'll do far better with her than you've ever done with Collette. After all, Therese won't be clinging to each word with the hopes that you'll come pay her a very private, very rousing encore afterward. She has her own affairs, she does, and if I say so, a far more superb voice and ethic than her predecessor ever had." I frowned for a moment and then with a shake of my head, I went to find my new leading lady. 

She was just where Margot had presumed, and in no time she and I were lost to the love of our acting. Her voice was indeed superior and I found that we were quite a good match in our inflections and improvisations. In that spacious loft, we acted out all of our scenes as time slipped past and indeed I didn't think of anything else until she remarked that it had begun to snow and I looked out the window to see that darkness had long since come. I hadn't seen Nicolas since we'd arrived, and I wondered where he'd gone and what had occupied his hours. Therese and I took a small break to find something to eat and refuel our efforts, for there was more to be done. Finally, sometime way into the morning hours she and I parted with a fond embrace and assurance that it was going to be a smashing success the following evening. I looked all over for Nicolas, but found no sign of him and no one was around at that hour to ask. The theatre was dark and silent, and I wandered around, just lost to my own thoughts and appreciation for the place. I made the mistake of lying down backstage on a little cot someone had made up, and instantly I fell asleep. When I woke, the place was once again bustling though no one paid me any mind, and I thought how short a sleep it had seemed, and wondered whether it had been real at all. Someone finally turned to notice that I'd awoken, and shoved a steaming cup into my hand along with a shoddily assembled sandwich. I slowly made my way through the food, but I kept thinking of Nicolas. Surely he'd gone home last night. Why hadn't he sought me out before departing? Ah, he knew I was lost to the cause, and I was a big boy after all. I could care for myself. Still, I'd have liked it, and as I sat there, I missed him. 

"Well come on now, you of all people can't sit around all morning in a daydream. I think you did enough of that, you sleepyhead." A great welcoming laughter came from Pauline as she stepped up beside the cot. "You've slept longer than you think Lestat. It's near mid-morning. We have so much to do that I can't spare much time to hear the wonderful details of your retreat, but you bet I want to hear them. You did have a special time, didn't you?" 

I relayed as much detail as I could while I got up and shook the sleep away. Of course there was much I didn't have to tell her, for I was sure she knew those details or could well imagine. I had a feeling Pauline might know more than she let on most of the time. When I asked her about Nicolas, she advised me that he'd come in very early this morning and had taken a place in the orchestra pit where she'd last seen him scribbling away feverishly on his music sheets. I smiled at the image it created, and she promised that after the whole performance was over, the three of us would get together for a fine meal and catch up on all the things we could. Such a gathering I looked forward to attending. I kissed her cheek and set out to find Nicolas at last, and located him where she'd last seen him. He was hunched over his music, noting here and there then putting several measures into play on his violin. There were several other musicians around him, each busy with their own parts, and I didn't wish to intrude so I merely sat myself on the farthest side of the stage and waited for them to break. 

Nicolas sat his violin on a chair with the utmost care and then in total opposition, smashed his fist onto the other which held the sheets of music. He was frustrated apparently, but I watched as he diligently pursued the task. There were other things I could have been doing, like finding Therese once more or seeing to my grand and wonderful costumes which I was dying to wear, but I took some small bit of pride as I sat in observation. It was as if Nicolas was one thing to everyone else who worked beside him, and something else entirely to my eyes. He was mine, I thought, not like a trophy but like a secret gem I alone could observe, only it was infinitely more tangible. I smiled at such thoughts until the feel of a hand upon my leg broke my reverie. 

"I suppose we missed one another last night." He stood there wearing a sweat on his brow and an accomplished look on his face. He must have ironed out whatever kinks he perceived in his composition, though I knew he'd sit and practice almost to the opening curtain. "I thought to find you but I knew you were occupied. I went home fairly late myself." 

"I figured as much, but I have to say, I missed you this morning." I had lowered my head as if to speak above the soft din of the tuning musicians, but the greater truth was not only that I wanted to whisper something tender, but to in some way catch his scent and the feel of his hair. It was the least way I could gather an intimate moment here in this setting. "Did you talk to Pauline when you came in? She's very excited that we're back. I think everyone is excited to see us, don't you agree?" 

"Yes, yes, Lestat. We're heroes, if you say it is so." He chided me and I laughed. It was hard to tell most times if his deadpan sense of humor was laced with seriousness, but if it was on today of all days, I wanted no part. "Certainly there was some news, hm? You and Therese will be entertaining the crowd this evening. I have to say I'm pleased. Her voice works much better with my playing. That trollop won't be missed!" 

"What a thing to say Nicolas. You know she'd have given her last bit of change to see what you have beneath your breeches." I laughed. "Oh but then she'd have liked to see my treasures to I imagine. Hell, we should have shown it to her for a gift had we known she was departing!" I clapped my leg as I laughed harder and he joined me, telling me I was no damn better than himself when it came to my bad taste. I found just for the nearness of him, that I wanted little more than to take him into one of the rooms upstairs and ravish his body with my own. When I leaned in to suggest such a break, he gave in only slightly and no other eye but mine could have sensed the pressure of his shoulder against my chest. I knew it to mean that he'd like nothing better. Unfortunately, we each had other things to attend, and so we smiled at one another and made an unspoken promise to catch time for such a thing before the curtain rose that evening. 

Hours passed, and I tried on my fine costumes that were so splendid in shades of red interwoven with threads of gold. How on earth such finery came to our little theatre was beyond my understanding but Margot assured me that several patrons had stepped up since our troupe had been performing more popular plays, and it was also her assurance that I was in large part responsible for the money that was coming in regularly. If that was truthful, it made my heart soar not only for the honor of being well received, but for the fact that the theatre had been my goal for so long and was now my home, and these people my family. If I could help them to also live better, then there was my success for now and indeed so it was the result of goodness which secretly justified my sermons. I'd found Therese earlier and we'd run through our lines for a couple of hours but we were each most honestly exhausted of them and sure that we'd be competent when the time came so I left her to get on with her own fitting. When it occurred to me to seek out Nicolas, I discreetly asked a few people if they'd seen him and one lad shrugged and presumed he'd gone off to practice in private. Oh, privacy yes, that was essential I knew. He hated being around the others in the hours before his playing time began. He'd go off and practice the overtures and run through it all in his head. I should have known. The sound from the back stairs as I ascended them was confirmation of the fact. The strains from his violin echoed down the little hallway as I walked and without interrupting him, I pushed the door open and slipped inside to find him once more lost to the sound. Ah, now what a sight he was for my eyes there in that too-warm, room that smelled of incense, with his white shirt opened and his eyes closed as the notes came forth. I wet my lips both from the heat and the vision he presented, and then he noticed me. A slow smile came to his lips, and he sat down the instrument by the wall and came to me, his hands on my hips while that smile persisted. 

"You found me at last. I didn't think you'd bother to investigate for how busy you surely are today. We've only got perhaps another two hours and you'll be out there winning the hearts of Paris." He kissed the soft sheen of sweat on my neck and loosened my shirt collar. I was instantly aroused and in return I did the same, with mumbled words against his quickly exposed flesh. I could only pray that no one came in on us as we stood there, because like a match to a flame our passions were so instant that neither of us could have disguised them. I broke away in consideration of our privacy and as I continued to get out of my shirt, I propped a chair up under the door in a feeble attempt to stave off any impulsive visitors. God knows it wouldn't have helped much but it might have given us warning. I went back to him and we both laughed at the effort, and gave in to what we really wanted. In seconds only our open shirts and stockings remained and once more each of us broke into laughter at what lusts we were stealing in private and how helpless we'd be if anyone came. At the time however, our bodies didn't care and soon, we were lost to the feel of one another. Without our secret supply of the magical salve to ease passage, the roughness of our union only added to the stolen, heated time. I took him against the wall, his legs wrapped around my waist, his hands pinned beneath mine, stretched up as if he were a prisoner to my intrusion, and he was, but he wanted every bit of it as I moved. With no intention toward hurting him, I demanded more than usual, I thrust harder and ached to reach my climax. He saw to his own, and in unison it came and we shook against one another, hot and wet. We were unable to speak both for the act and the dryness of our mouths and tenderly we sought the moisture of one another's mouths, which came eventually and allowed our words once more. 

"Nicolas, that was incre..." I managed. "That was," My voice trailed off. I was desperate with thirst. 

"Incredible?" He answered, and I laughed. Yes indeed it was my lover. Incredible and then some but then again, when has it been anything else. You shouldn't have tired yourself out though. The public awaits." I lowered him and to my chagrin was slipped from the warm confines of his body, but I knew this had been a stolen interlude. How the hell either of us was supposed to concentrate now I didn't know, but I did know that we wouldn't see one another until very late in the evening. I felt that I had the potential to get quite obsessed with just the physical union as I'd just shared with him. Ah, what if we were rich young men with nothing to do but lie about all day or night experimenting in the sensual. That brought a smirk to my face. 

"It was incredible, and you know it, yes. Don't you think about it tiring me Nicolas. Even if I'm crawling on that stage, I'll be wearing a smile. Damn that we have to part. I want to just lie around naked with you and do terrible things!" He laughed and got himself dressed as did I, though it was wickedly hot in the room and they stuck to every inch of my body and made me hate them all the more. I went to him and pulled him close. "You're going to leave them breathless tonight, I know it, just as you leave me." 

"Maybe. I think the music has come together as I've hoped. It will be hard not to steal glimpses at you. I hate that you are so damn distracting! I caught a look at your second act costume, and it's really spectacular. Will you throw me a little look now and then, Lelio?" 

To hear that name from his lips was a rare pleasure. I wanted to be his Lelio, lover extraordinaire. "You know I will, my love. You know I will." I didn't want to go. It felt as if I wanted some reassurance, like a child. There was some hesitation because I knew once I left this little furnace of a room, everything would become a whirlwind and there would be a strangely inexplicable divide between he and I, at least for a while. Despite the thrill I felt at knowing I would soon be up on the stage, lost to the world I created, something in that left me most unsettled.


	20. Denoument

After I'd gone and cleaned myself up, I was quick to command the make up and wardrobe departments. I was reaching that pre-performance peak that always made me feel like a boy again. In fact, it was like a new childhood, for in my own I'd never really had much to work me into such an anxious state. At times it made me feel as if I'd spill what supper I might have consumed and I dearly hoped I could keep it down. God, but I never grew tired of that feeling! There were more people in the theatre that night than on any night since my arrival and infusion into the family I'd come to know as my own. I pulled aside the stage curtain just enough to take it all in, and I felt the familiar queasiness rise in my gut. They were there, paying customers - and they wanted to see our little endeavors, our farce and our tragedies that made them for a while forget their own. They wanted to see… me. Each and every time these notions occurred to me, I felt my heart flood with warmth not only for the patrons, but for how far Nicolas and I seemed from the obscurity of our youth, for my mother, and for anyone who had ever treated me kindly and believed in my spirit. I felt perhaps that in performance, I had the opportunity to prove each of my teachers and friends correct in their belief, and too, prove each discouraging remark to be incorrect. There was some defiance in my acting, and I knew it. It said, "Look at me, I am Lestat." The little dialogue that ran through my mind made me laugh as I stood there in anticipation. It was only momentarily marred by the remembrance of the disparaging conversation with Nicolas the night before. He couldn't have meant half the things he said, and more to the point when I felt the tremors of excitement run through each nerve on my body, I don't think I much cared if he had meant every lousy word. To hell with doubt and speculation tonight - the stage, the interaction, the play… the play… yes, I thought: The game of it all. That was what mattered now. 

Upon my face, the greasepaint had been applied sparingly but with accentuated detail. My eyes shone immaculate when I looked into the mirror, and my smile, which was naturally bright and wide seemed even further inviting. Everything was set and now we had only to wait for the orchestra to begin and they did almost as soon as I set off to get a last minute primping. I wasn't in the initial scene, so I had time to watch both as an enthralled actor and a critic. Each word or inference, each bow and curtsey was an intricate dance to which I felt obligated, no, born to witness and incorporate into my memory. I knew I did this because when it was my turn to be there in the footlights, I'd find myself doing little tricks or pulling improvisations out of the thin air. Like a machine, I took in everything I saw, processed it, and made it my very own, renewed and better. While I didn't reflect upon that each time, I was certain it was the very skill that was making my name known to all of these fine patrons. 

At last came my cue, and I strolled onto the stage with flair and bravado, and once again the duality of it all passed through me in an instant. There was the audience, there was the orchestra and within it, Nicolas, and yet there was nothing else but for myself and Therese among the other cast there on the stage. For being short on rehearsal, she and I were flawless. I entertained myself even with the spontaneous moves I brought into the act. She sang like an angel, and I was lulled into a lover's swoon by her voice, just as it should appear. In the middle of my scene, a peculiar thing happened. At first, I thought sweat had run into my eyes, for everything blurred. The footlights swayed unevenly in my vision and I swore that within the audience I saw the face again, the one I'd imagined several times before - or had it been imagined? It was more inside my mind than anything I could touch for real… though I was certain there was someone who watched me specifically. Each move I made felt scrutinized and for several odd minutes I felt as if I were falling asleep right during my act! My head swam as if I'd just run a race and then entered a too-warm room. The feeling was hideous and attractive at once, as if I could explore and follow it around unknown corners. Yet it passed as quickly as it had begun, and I was once again the prescient soul, in love with every detail I could render and every heart I could affect. These were moments I wanted to last, but invariably the curtain fell and the audience went into riotous applause as once more it lifted and allowed us access to our public. My eyes moved over the crowd and as I saw them rise to their feet, I felt for them just as much approval in return. The powdered wigs, the elegant gowns, the jewels - my God, we weren't just bringing in the commoners anymore, were we? Why couldn't they pay us in those diamonds? Ah, maybe someday, I laughed as I gave Therese a generous embrace. I looked down at Nicolas were he stood, taking a well-deserved bow of his own. The new music he'd done was intricate and flavorful. It had likely made the audience forget any of the other music that had accompanied our scenes. When compared with his original work, the rest was all filler and fodder. Once more we all bowed as one, and just before I turned to go backstage, I thought I saw it again, that lurking figure in the back. I stopped and shielded my eyes to the lights but there was no one, or was there? Damn but I'd seen the face before, hadn't I? It was a mask of some sort, I'd thought - and the most ridiculous thing, how it seemed I could hear his voice, no - was it a male voice? It was. I heard his voice as clearly as if this mysterious man stood just behind me and whispered into my ear. But there was no one now, or if he was out there - whoever he may be, I couldn't see him and the others were tugging on my costume, as they begged me to be done with collecting accolades and join them in celebration. Forget any strangers I thought, tonight this is my family and the world to which I belong. 

So it was that the others and myself disappeared into the darkness of the city streets, well intending to drown ourselves in celebration. There was a sense that already we were drunk, and indeed we were. This night had been a success for all of us beyond what we might have imagined. One of the young understudies lifted me onto his shoulders and soon it was a cacophony of cheers for my performance. Of course anyone might suspect that I didn't try in the least to discourage such praise. Why should I? Up there on that stage, I was someone else and I had positively cemented my place as someone to watch. Why should I feel bad about that? I let their accolades surround me like a frenetic dream, and soon I was down from the boy's shoulders and stumbling with laughter and equal praise for my partners in crime. When we paused, Therese gave me a warm kiss of admiration and congratulations, and so out of my head was I, that it was returned with hungered indiscretion for anyone who cared to look upon such an encore. Yet even as the others jeered and hooted in approval, I came back to myself for a moment there in the cold, damp streets and wondered where he was. Surely, my violinist hadn't decided to skip out on the revelry! Therese and another who's name I couldn't recall assured me they'd seen him head out of the back door toward the dressing rooms and they figured he was probably caring for his violin before coming along after us. The image made me smile and agree. I'd seen him wipe down the instrument after one of his frenzied performances as if he were caressing a spent lover. I thought, just for an instant of how his long fingers looked as he moved them over the rich lacquered curves, and I knew that if anyone had caught a glimpse of my eyes before I looked up with more careless laughter, surely they'd have known how he moved within my soul. Without further hesitation, we restless merrymakers were headed off again until we reached the intimacy of one of their apartments. It was quite larger and much grander than ours and of course instantly I wanted it for my own. How greedy I could be, and yet I laughed in spite of myself. Moments flew by and I was greeted by nearly everyone in the theatre it seemed. How were all of them fitting into this place? It was large, but not infinite! Perhaps the two drinks that had gone down like water were altering my perspective, and so what if they had! Tonight, there were no cares, right? Tonight was Lelio and his glorious band of brothers, his cache of comrades, non? From all around, there was music and gossip and everything I ever wanted but then, no… where was … Ah, there he stood, his back against the frame of the door. A thought made me laugh. He still wore his finer clothes and rested against the backdrop of tapestry and gilt as he watched me. He could have been a prince at some royal affair. With that hair of his that couldn't resist his face, he would have been a royal terror, I thought. Again I laughed out loud which caused Prince Nicolas to stroll toward me with a look I couldn't quite distinguish. 

"You've been drinking so much already, Lestat? Honestly." His thick brows furrowed and I wanted to touch them. 

"Oh, dear Prince, do forgive me. The better I will bend to your will this evening, you'll see." I laughed and bowed toward him. His smile came slowly and he reached discreetly to take my hand in his. To anyone's eyes it may have seemed a gesture of appreciation or who knew. I didn't care. God, I could have stolen him away into a corner and with my own hand made him hard beneath his fine garments in a manner that was definitely not casual. No, no… I was deadly serious about Nicolas. I laughed. The strong drinks were reaching my brain and the room was wobbling. It was time to stop myself or I might wind up exposing my lover quite literally and figuratively at once. What was the natural thing to do? Hand him a glass of the same poison so he could at least meet me halfway! He shook his head to scold me but soon I saw him across the room with his glass full once again, so he wasn't one to preach. I'd even made myself a little promise to stop for a bit, or at least slow down. I didn't want him to have to carry my carcass home in the snow, and I certainly hoped for some secret sport later when we were alone, and I did not wish for such a game to be ill-affected by my celebratory binge. 

Every once in a while I'd catch him looking at me, but I'd play it off and look away. I gave myself freely to the girls in their loosened gowns. Their makeup was gone away and each fair cheek felt like dew as it pressed against mine. The ladies, how fine they were as they swooned and batted their pretty lashes my way. I might have been most tempted, but ah, I had a secret didn't I? And I daresay, as each of them blessed me with glided laughter, I found it most amusing that amid their affections I knew Nicolas watched, and I knew he'd want me jealously. It thrilled me to my toes! I was wonderfully tormented by such imaginings and if I wasn't careful these girls would think it was their charms that caused such physical effects. I pushed one hand away that had wandered too far toward such investigation, and grabbed another glass of brandy. When it was gone in seconds, another followed in its place and was gone just as quickly. I sidestepped several conversations that wanted my opinion and attention and headed for the balcony. I laughed at no one, and I wanted to dance. I wanted to hop up to the rooftop and make a drunken spectacle of myself, carelessness be damned. When I heard the sound behind me, it was nothing less than Heaven's permission to act out such fantasy. He'd brought the violin, and the little minuet he began as he leaned there against the door was magical. Once again I leapt and turned, heedless to the snow beneath my feet, and into the room I waltzed. I spun the ladies and even a few young men into my arms before gently releasing them to another partner who laughed and welcomed them warmly. Soon we were all animated, and the room swirled and hummed with our delight. The thought of such an image fading was impossible, and yet it came too soon, and we were all left breathless with happiness. Nicolas won a heartily deserved round of applause and some of the ladies rushed to him, eager to be close to such talent. I stood there and smiled, feeling something close to pride… but something else crept in, and I couldn't understand what it was, though again it was hardly the hour to speculate over such quickly passed emotions. The hour wasn't too late, but I wanted to go home. I wanted home. With a smile, I felt the word course through my body as surely as if it were an entity all its own. If such a thing were true, then it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that I did in fact see the same invisible hands caress my love upon his back. He tilted his head as if the voice had caught his ear and told him what he really wanted was not within these four walls. Oh spirit, I thought, float away over the snow covered spires and let us have this hour. He came to me and without any words, we gathered our coats from their place, and slipped away. 

Before very long we were climbing the steps to our place and silently I cursed the icy steps. It wasn't so much a hatred for the effort, but the effect of the evening's alcohol made climbing them more challenging than ever. Nicolas would put his hands on my backside and push with exaggerated comments until he and I both burst out laughing. Ah, it had been a fine evening and we both were in rare form. That is to say that when we closed the door and took off our coats, I felt that he and I shared a mood of quiet knowledge that would have been most difficult to explain. 

"You stole the whole stage, you know." He said as he watched me remove my boots and shake away the few snowflakes that lingered in my hair. 

"Now, I shared the stage, Nicolas. It wasn't just me." 

"You're going to try and be modest with me now, Lestat? It doesn't work very well coming from your lips. You know very well that the acclaim will go mostly to you. Therese and all the rest, they're an afterthought in your shadow. False modesty will get you nowhere with me, nor your reviewers I'd say. I'm sure they'd much rather have you reaching for their accolades than protesting them." 

"Well I..." 

"No, nothing!" He said. His voice seemed particularly rich to my ears. "What I saw up there tonight will guarantee your future. You think all I do is sit down in the pit waiting for my part to come? I watch you, my love. I'm as entranced as anyone and I tell you, after this evening, the Comedie will send representatives to our doorstep to make you an offer. In fact, I'll wager that some of them were watching you from the audience tonight." 

"I don't know about that, but if you say so then I won't offer protest." I smiled and moved over to where he sat on the floor. It was now ever-cold in our little room and he tossed coal into the fire absently. His mind obviously was reviewing the details of this night. 

"You were amazing too Nicolas. Do you think no one noticed? God, the intermezzo you gave them was beyond compare. I beg anyone to argue that Mozart himself would have produced a finer piece! I stood behind the curtain and watched you play. Do you know how I love that? " I touched his face and he graced my hand with his cheek while his eyes closed just as if my palm were his violin. "Yes, like that." I kissed him at the corner of his eye. "You close your eyes and you go somewhere else, Nicolas. What matters is that when you go, you take them with you." I spoke of the audience for I had witnessed their transmigration in his music. They too would close their eyes and let it move through them, and in such moments, I was helpless to emotion. I wanted to be inside him, if only to know that power and passion. I was envious but humbled at the same time. 

He looked up through his dark lashes and whispered for me to kiss him. It was not something I needed a second invitation to pursue, and I bent down to press my lips to his. I loved to kiss him. I'd always enjoyed the feel of warm lips as the met and the more intimate action of a kiss over what sex itself could be - just true physical gratification. When I thought of it, I realized that before Nicolas, that's all it had ever really been. The girls of the village, the insignificant ladies of the theatre here and there, they'd never meant to me what he did in just a single kiss. If I never again made love to Nicolas, then kissing would suffice because when it happened like now, here in this little room of ours, it said everything. His tongue moved slowly against mine and I breathed in his exhalations with symbolic appreciation. My beloved, how I wanted him in every way. I was of course hungry for more and bore the evidence of my lust shamelessly. When at last I rose from his mouth, he gave me a smile that at once melted my heart and made that need jump in anticipation. Of course being ever astute, he noticed right away. 

"You have enough energy for such sport this evening?" He fell silent only for a second and then whispered the word Lelio against my neck. The warmth of his lips was more than enough to motivate my hands to undress myself completely even as he fought to kiss me in tormented prevention of doing that very thing. "You won't have to put on an act for me then, if I make love to you?" He chided, and I growled as he joined me to ease the frustration I had over the shirt that would not come off so easily. We laughed together because of his comment and then I stepped back and made a production of each garment as it was removed and discarded. With a bow, I twirled my nightshirt and teased that I would put it on and forget all about making love. Though I tried to be as serious as possible, his mocking smile as he watched threatened to undo my efforts. Finally, he tackled me and I was beneath the warmth of his body, right where I wanted to be. His mouth was maddening on mine, and the sudden aggressiveness was thrilling. I pushed him away and he pinned me down. It was delicious, and in no time he'd managed somehow to get out of his own clothes. How he did it, I didn't figure but his talents were always a surprise and I certainly wasn't complaining! 

"Nicolas, God... " 

"No, I'm not God, Lestat..." 

"You're my God, Nicolas. I worship you." I brushed the hair from his face. He hovered over me with a smile while he tried to figure out my level of seriousness. I meant the words most intensely, for never had there been another in my life that had so wholly consumed my being. In the nights when I'd sat in the silence of the monastery, the mysteries and devotion there had only been half of what I now felt for this man. It was an odd comparison to be truthful, and I knew that I had devotion to God and the spiritual but was this not spiritual? Did my heart not rise to a new elevation each time his arms came around me as they were now? 

"Don't say such things. You'll wind up regretting blasphemous words." Those lips met mine and it was forgotten so long as they remained. In fact, everything was obliterated by our passions. I think perhaps I'd not have been able to recite my own name and it didn't matter to me at all. When he loved me, I was no body, no name. I was something beyond all such petty, earthly attachments. 

"I have no regrets, Nicolas." I laughed. My hands moved up and down his back and lower still. He had no problem interpreting my message, and within minutes he was inside me. His name swam through my mind over and over until he forced it free. His hand clutched my hair so hard I feared he would rip it out. His climax was forceful and left us each feeling breathless and bruised, but naturally we were not complaining about either condition. I would never tire of that feeling when his hardness would spasm inside as it delivered the warmth. As for how I reached my own pinnacle of satisfaction, he saw to that once he slipped free of my arms. Time passed seamlessly as he pleasured me with his mouth and hands, working me to the point of breaking and backing off once again. He pressed his tongue into each crevice and curve, leaving me quite wantonly spread underneath him as I begged for him to alternately cease such prolonged torture and give more of it to me! Finally, he brought me to the point again where I was raging hard, and then straddled my body. Unbelievably he teased me against his own anticipation, taking both organs into his hand to rub them against his belly. The sight of it was fantastic. It was an erotic, surreal moment. Our bodies were one in that most essential area and I knew I couldn't hold out much longer. 

"Together, Lestat? You want it to happen? Tell me. I want to hear you say the words." He teased. 

"I want too much, Nic…" I panted in answer. "I want to have it come inside of you, I want this yes, together. I want to give it to you over and over, in every way!" It was true enough. If I'd had the ability I would have been on a sexual binge and taken him or had him take me in every conceivable way. God, the things we could do. I'd only begun to imagine. I wanted to go to places where there were male lovers. I wanted to talk to those who would be more experienced in the art of such love. I wanted to devote myself to such glorious sins and learn all there was to be learned. Oh I was delirious with the thought that I could climax endlessly. The thought of it, the mental image of that silvery, creamy texture and the scent of it… indefinable as it was… our scent… his sweat, mine… 

"Together, " He said again, this time not in question but affirmation. I opened my eyes enough to see that he had grown completely rigid once more. Together in his hands the tumescent organs waited as if for a command and I uttered it as blackness threatened my vision. 

"Yes Nicolas, now…" I hadn't been breathing! I sucked in a great gulp of air and my head spun. I felt the familiar tightening in my gut and below where his hand pumped so arduously. Those small, powerful convulsions came, hard and mysterious. I gasped as each strong wave of the climax struck. Oh sweet, glory. I could have died gladly in such a moment if it were not for the fact that I would so selfishly miss the opportunity to experience this very act once more. Nicolas fairly howled as he came, and I watched each strand mingle with my own in his grasp, watched it land upon his belly and then my own as he moved his hands. I was still not breathing right and felt as if I would lose consciousness at any moment. For that reason, I cried out and sat up just enough to grab him and pull him down on top of my chest. The slick pool spread between us and I savored the feeling as I whispered his name. I wanted to kiss him but I could not. I needed air. I wanted only him. Gray vision… 

I felt his hand brushing the hair back out of my eyes and he lay beside me. I spoke his name in question, and he assured me that everything was all right, and I felt that even in the dark he might see if I blushed. Had I passed out? It would not have been inconceivable I knew, given the alcohol, the heat of our room and my lack of breathing. Well he couldn't ever again argue if I said he left me breathless. I laughed softly at the thought and he inquired with a look. I shook my head without explanation. He got up and brought over our blankets that were plentiful if thin, and we covered one another before settling once again. 

"You're amazing you know." He said. The soft warmth of his tongue moved over my stomach in reverent dedication. I knew he savored the salty, clean taste of what we'd made together and I smiled because even though I couldn't see his face, I knew it well enough that as I lay there with my eyes closed, I saw him as if I stood above and watched our intimacy. 

"Oh yes, I know." The softness of my laughter was stopped short by his kiss when he crept up to my lips to share, and this time I had no resistance for want of air. I returned the tender affection over and over, each softer than the last. He laid his head on my chest and as I kissed his forehead and soothed the hair back with my fingertips, his steady breath let me know that sleep had won him over at last. 

Soon enough, I joined him in the dark world of dreams until I heard a crash and some unnamed roar. The wind had knocked out the window, I thought. That was odd! Was it a snowstorm, I wondered? Thieves? Even as I was alarmed, I was more disoriented when I sat up, lost in the nightmare sound of the wind as it whipped into the room. Yet it was not the wind that commanded my attention. Gods alive, what the hell? I gasped out loud and called for Nicolas. I think I shook him as hard as I possibly could with one hand while the other supported my body in shock. No! What was this? I crawled backward to the far wall and yelled for Nicolas. Why wouldn't he wake up? Surely this was a horrible nightmare and Nicolas was oblivious to my thrashing as I fought to wake. In my head I screamed for him to wake up and pull me into his arms yet it was so real. I cried out the name of God and in response heard laughter that rang off each wall. Nicolas, can't you hear that? No, he didn't rouse. He was under a spell as peaceful as mine was horrific. I think I smacked my own face to once again try and wake myself if indeed I was caught in a perverse nightmare. The thing… who was it? What was it? The thing here in the room with me stepped closer and seemed huge as I crouched against the back wall. My eyes were wide open as was my mouth. No, it couldn't be this, but it was! This was the face, the obscure … person in the audience. But it wasn't a person. It couldn't be. God save me, please…. I think I said aloud. Save me and I'll …. I didn't know what bargain to make. It was hardly time to stop and think of such dialogue and I stammered incoherently, and I cried, not even totally aware I was doing it until the salt of my tears reached my mouth. Nicolas… my God. I looked at him where he slept. Surely this thing that hadn't even spoken had him in some sort of trance. This man… this creature… what was it? I demanded to know and yet I felt for some way out of the room as if a secret panel would magically open behind me and provide a quick and amusing escape. Oh if I ever needed such a prop, it was now! The loudest laughter I'd ever heard filled the room and caused me to grasp my ears. I wanted to wake up. I begged God to wake me. I heard my prayer mocked and repeated by this thing, and it echoed in my head. In another instant I saw myself as if through this creature's eyes and heard in my mind: "Lelio" He said. "The Wolfkiller so bold to wear their death in a cloak of red. Come to me. Let me show you what it is to live." No! I screamed. No a thousand times. Be gone and let me wake to the morning light. Laughter again and he grabbed me as if I were only a twig. I pummeled his back with my fists and looked down on my oblivious lover. My tears fell onto his innocent face as he slept and again I heard in my head: "Wolfkiller, Devil of a Prince, what you will become!" What these words meant, any of them, I could not fathom. I barely heard anything but for the futile struggle of my fists against the unyielding robes he wore, and my cries for Nicolas, my protests and my anger. I was venomous with each kick and strike I gave, whether it made a difference or not. If this whatever he was planned to kill me, I wouldn't go so easily, he'd see. In seconds, he had me up on the windowsill that was broken from his entry. The frigid wind poured into the room, and in another instant, I felt this man… was he a man? My head was swimming. His feet lifted off the ledge, which I knew to be very narrow, and he held me like a misbehaved child as he leapt into the air. Impossible! I looked down and the street faded fast from my view. The apartment building went even faster away. Nicolas, my God. Oh Nicolas. I cried and my tears froze. I whispered to God in Heaven and all of the Angels to wake me. Yet this man, this… entity, this… invader, was only the beginning of another existence altogether: Whether it was a nightmare or fantastic, ethereal dream, I was to find on my own, along a path only one such as he could know. One such as I was to become, though as Paris fell out of sight I no longer had any thought of life. I was quite sure if I wasn't still lying on our little floor waiting to be awoken, that I was surely headed for death. Consciousness faded. If I was to die, so be it. This couldn't be real, any of it! Sophia was cooking us a wonderful breakfast, I thought. Nicolas, can you smell it? Wake up and talk to me like you do sometimes in the middle of the night. Nicolas? He was nowhere. I was nowhere. Blackness overtook my senses, and I was swept away with this monster who had come to… to do what? Ah, to give me such a nightmare. This was however, a spectacular moment and there was no way I could have guessed as we flew that I would come to glorify and curse it for the rest of my time on earth - eternal as it would be from that night forward.


End file.
